


the reality we make

by theunluckybreak



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Confusing, Don't worry though, Dreams, Fluff, Het and Slash, Infidelity, M/M, Male Slash, Niall dreams A LOT you guys, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-04 22:27:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunluckybreak/pseuds/theunluckybreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is all Zayn has to say: “Ni, let’s do it, let’s”, and suddenly Niall’s life has changed again. It happens, like some kind of freak accident, they just ease into it. Niall has never been one for relationships, ever, but he thinks yeah, maybe and tries it. Meanwhile, Liam looks on with all his complicated questions in his eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had to do this, I had to make my mind up whether I love Ziall more than Niam. This is the outcome. I'm so sorry if this is terribly confusing to read, I swear my next fic won't be so cryptic. I hope.

Sometimes (lately, since they got _here_ , it’s been more often than not) Niall dreams about his seven-year-old self. 

In the dream, his present-day self is walking on a narrow road in thick, lime-green woods and nothing but his own breathing is heard. Except it’s not his own breathing, it’s too rough, fast and out of breath. It sounds like he’s running, but he’s not. Then he sees the boy – natural brown hair instead of blonde, but still the same blue eyes, nose and rosy pink lips – on the road, running towards him with a heavy bag in his arms, a widely smiling Mickey Mouse plastered on the front of it. 

In wonder, Niall stops walking and the kid stops running and they just stare at each other. The forest is close to the equivalent of a paradise, but a twisted one with no sunshine and only grey sky like rain will soon come, and there’s a feeling of _no_ in the lower pit of Niall’s stomach. The boy clutches the bag tighter to his chest, blue eyes big and trying to anticipate what the older boy might do next. Niall wants to tell him that it’s okay, the he doesn’t mean any harm and that the woods are for everyone. But then _she_ yells his name, making black birds rise from branches, and they both turn their heads. 

Niall wakes up, calmly opens his eyes, and is filled with a horrifying feeling of being alone. 

Feeling lost and confused (he can barely remember where they are, maybe somewhere outside Madrid), eyes stinging and heart beating so fast it feels like it’s going to explode, he leaves his room and sneaks out in the still lit corridor of the hotel. The door closest to his is to the room Harry and Lou stay in and he tries it first, because it’s Harry, _Harry_ and he would get it. 

It’s locked and Niall doesn’t feel like knocking, maybe bothering, so he tries the next one – to Liam and Zayn’s room – instead. He finds it being open and sneaks in, quietly closing the door behind him. The room is dark and Niall closes his eyes for a moment, standing still, to get his eyes used to the darkness and retrieve his vision. When he opens them again, his ears notice two types of snoring – whistling and rumbling – and understands he hasn’t woken the two up by getting in. 

He can see the bed now, and the contours of two boys sleeping in it, and tiptoes over and crawls his way up white, soft covers – feeling like a dog, or a cat maybe – and listens to the snores, checks if either of them wakes up. He lets out a shivering sigh when he lies down between the boys, shuffles a bit to get himself comfortable and puts a careful arm around Zayn’s waist, in need of warmth and comfort. 

Yeah, Zayn. Some would think – or rather, _they all_ would think – that Niall would come to Liam because he’s the wise one, the caring and loving, the one who listens and asks the right questions. The one Niall has known the longest of the boys. But Niall doesn’t want that, doesn’t want Liam to wake up and wonder what’s wrong. He doesn’t want to talk about what’s wrong, only wants to forget about anything being wrong. 

He hears his mother’s voice in his head, the _we have to move her, she can’t live on her own, you don’t understand_ and the endless arguing, tries to shut it out by gripping tighter on to Zayn. He doesn’t fall asleep again properly, afraid of dreams and thoughts, and it takes hours before Zayn jerks awake. Zayn doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask questions _(what, why, are you –)_ like Niall knew he wouldn’t, he only moves his arm so Niall can rest his head on top of it and then he falls quickly back to sleep again. It takes a few minutes, soft snores the only thing in Niall’s head, and then he falls asleep as well. 

-

Liam is gone when Niall and Zayn wake up, the sun hitting their faces angrily and reminding them that it’s a new day and they’ve got new places to see ( _Finally_ , Niall thinks but never says it). 

He doesn’t feel like getting out of bed though, wants to stay put for a while longer and enjoy the silence, the calm breathing and the light shuffling of covers and sheets. He’s so tired, even with the okay sleep he got during the night, his head is so tired. Exhausted. 

Zayn moves though, eventually, raising his arm and dipping fingers into his dark locks, a slight mess, and his stubble accidentally grazes Niall’s forehead. Air hits his face as Zayn breathes out, something between a sigh and a groan – maybe an abnormal yawn – and then his mouth is by Niall’s ear, breathing once again. 

“I need to take a shower, Niall”, he murmurs and Niall gets it, lifts his head and lets Zayn’s arm free. 

There’s an exposure of Zayn’s back, golden olive and smooth, as he sits up on the edge of the bed and pulls off the t-shirt he sleeps in. Only a minute later, Niall can hear the shower and he rubs his still stinging eyes before disappearing back to his own room to make himself at least somewhat presentable. He checks his phone, already filled with missed calls and text messages, and chooses to ignore them. He doesn’t want to argue with his mum today, thinks he’s had enough. 

Liam is all big eyes and questions written over his face when Niall comes down for breakfast. He wants to know, Niall can tell, but he makes it a point not to look at him to try and make Liam understand that he doesn’t want to talk about it. He means well, sure, but sometimes ignorance works better than dealing with things, ignorance is bliss and all that. 

Zayn comes down moments later, takes his usual seat next to Liam and doesn’t say anything either and doesn’t ask questions, because he just gets it – gets that, sometimes, you don’t want to talk about your shit. 

He flickers through the morning newspaper instead, mutters something to Liam about rain, and Niall can’t help but think back of his dream – the one that seems to never want to leave his mind at rest. He doesn’t understand what it means, if his subconscious is trying to tell him something. 

There’s the road, the brightly green trees that make the woods, the grey sky with threatening rain, he and his seven-year-old self with a bag, clutching it like it holds all his biggest secrets. Then there’s a woman shouting his name loudly – after all these restless nights of dreaming the same thing, he has learned to recognize it as his grandmother’s voice – and then he wakes up, calmly, like it isn’t a nightmare. Maybe it actually isn’t, Niall just can’t tell. There’s still a feeling, in the dream, of something being wrong and that feeling won’t disappear when he wakes up. 

“Niall? Niall, aren’t you going to eat something?” 

He blinks, slowly, and gets pulled back into the reality around him. He can suddenly see (full English breakfast on a plate in front of him, the boys, an eager fly) and hear the things around him (Louis shouting and laughing at a tired Harry with awful morning hair – they must’ve just joined them – the flickering of the newspaper and Liam talking). 

“Of course I am”, Niall says, forces a smile, because he never denies food. He chews on a bit of toast and listens to Louis announcing where they should be heading next, ignores Liam’s eyes of complicated questions and stares into Zayn’s eyes of simple answers – _it’s okay, everything will be alright._

-

Niall gets around to answering his calls a few days later, after he’s spent most of his day at the beach getting sunburn and his mum quickly tells him, “It’s done. Your grandmother has been put into a nursery home. Please understand –“

He hangs up, doesn’t want to listen to the same explanations one more time, doesn’t want to hear, can’t hear. The only thing he hears in his head is his grandmother yelling his name, over and over, like a broken record. 

It’s not fair, really. She shouldn’t be locked up, all alone without her friends and family, because she doesn’t remember their names and faces anymore. It’s not her fault, but no one except Niall seems to get that. Maybe they just don’t understand, haven’t spent as much time with her as Niall has (whole weeks during the summer and many weekends during the winter) and don’t know how much her house means to her. The house. He hasn’t even asked what they’ll do with the house. He has forgotten, with dreams and shouting occupying his head all the time, and he thinks he should call his mum back and ask, he does, but then he doesn’t. He isn’t sure he wants to know, or if his mum even wants to tell him – the answer might just lead to more angry arguments and he’s too exhausted for that. 

That night he doesn’t even try to go to sleep in his own hotel room (always the single, always the fucking single), but sneaks out an hour after the others have gotten to bed. This time he doesn’t try Harry and Lou’s door like he did the first time, but goes immediately for Liam and Zayn’s. Once again it’s open and Niall can’t help but wonder if they’re either stupid or incredibly brave (there’s a fine line, he knows there is) to not fear any intruders. When he thinks about it again, maybe Liam just forgot to lock it, seems like something he would do. 

There are the two different types of snoring again, reassuring in a way in the darkness, and then there’s Niall’s quick slip from the door to the bed. The two best friends are very heavy sleepers, Niall notes as he climbs into the bed in between the two boys and lies down close to Zayn, a palm on his chest. He groans in his sleep and throws an arm out which lands around Niall’s shoulders and instinctively pulls him closer. 

The blonde falls asleep, head finally empty of any shouting, and doesn’t wake up until morning. Liam is yet again already gone, probably down to get breakfast, and Niall is caught in Zayn’s arms. 

He can tell by the lack of snoring that Zayn is awake and he’s grateful he doesn’t ask this time either. Zayn just makes things so simple that it almost forces Niall’s stinging eyes to tear up. He almost wants to tell him _thanks_ but he doesn’t, because it’ll break the magical, invisible bubble they’re in. Their silent agreement of _not asking._

An hour later they join Liam for breakfast, both quiet, and Liam’s eyes are again filled with questions Niall can’t answer, won’t. He fishes his phone up from his pocket, which he quickly grabbed without throwing a glance at when he got ready, and checks it. Three missed calls, two from his mum and one from his dad. He doesn’t call them back. 

-

The dream seems to be never-ending, as well as lacking any ending at all for that matter. It’s always interrupted by his grandmother’s yelling and he never gets to know, ask what his seven-year-old self is doing. He wants to know what’s in the bag his kid-self keeps clutching to, but doesn’t know how he’ll walk up to him or if his kid-self will even let him have a look inside. Judging by his big, blue eyes, he won’t. 

His nightly visits in Zayn and Liam’s bed become more and more frequent as the weeks pass and they find themselves in new, different places (they’ve been travelling for four months now, none of them knowing exactly where they’re going, only spending all their savings without caring). Liam even jokes at one point that they all, _might as well start sharing a bed regularly._

It’s the first time Liam comments on the whole thing, the thing that they’ve a silent agreement on not to talk about. Neither Niall nor Zayn find the joke very funny. 

Niall does think about going to Harry instead, maybe even talk some and get all his shit sorted out. He doesn’t, though, but remains in his spot between Liam and Zayn in their shared bed, always the closest to Zayn. Zayn radiates this kind of silent affirmation and warmth, doesn’t need to tell Niall that _things will be alright_ and _I’m here_ because Niall gets it anyway. 

Another week passes and they’re in a cab, during a late night, back to the city where their hotel is. Louis, Liam and Harry fall into blissful unconsciousness pretty much immediately, but Niall takes his time, snuggles up to Zayn and lets him hold him. That’s another thing as well, now – Niall always sits next to Zayn in every vehicle they’re in, during lunch and when they’re lying on the beach. He hasn’t consciously made that decision, he realizes, it has sort of just happened, as if Zayn is magnetising, with Liam on the other side, creating a perfect LiamNiallZayn sandwich. 

“Zayn?” he says, quietly, and enjoys the soothing feeling of Zayn’s thumb brushing over his shoulder. 

The older boy hums an answer, eyes not entirely closed but staring out into nothingness in tiny slits framed by long, dark shadows of lashes with streetlights flashing by every now and again, lighting up his features. 

Niall isn’t going to pour his heart out here, he’s only going to tell the other boy a little about how he _feels._ Because he feels so much and he can’t keep it all in. He buries his face further into Zayn’s neck, pushes nose against sweet, olive skin, and lets out a shaky breath, close to a shiver and he thinks of his grandmother, locked up. 

“I’m lonely, Zayn”, he mumbles against his skin, hates how pathetic he sounds, and almost hopes the other boy doesn’t hear him, has fallen asleep. 

He is awake though, he can tell by the lack of his snoring, and he is surprised to find Zayn doesn’t laugh or mock at his pathetic form like others would (Niall thinks of Lou for some reason). Instead he feels fingers nest into his hair, by his neck, softly and Zayn nodding his head, once. 

“It’s alright”, Zayn says and answers the question Niall hasn’t even come around to ask yet. “I’ll tell the others to switch it up with the rooms, yeah? You can share with me tonight.”

Zayn just _gets it._ That’s what Zayn does. Easy.

He mumbles a _thanks_ against skin of gold and then he falls asleep, and doesn’t dream of the woods and his grandmother’s voice. 

When he wakes up, it’s obvious that Zayn has told the others of the change in the sharing of rooms and Niall glances at Liam and sees nothing but unasked questions in his eyes. He closes his eyes again and when he opens them, he doesn’t look at Liam at all. 

-

He doesn’t feel alone the same way as he did before, when he was always forced into a hotel room of his own. Things feel better just as much as they don’t. 

He has gotten further into his dream – now, as he and his kid-self turn their heads they get to watch as the black birds rising from branches, fly towards them in high speed, with beaks sharp and aiming to hurt. He wakes up right before the birds hit them and now he doesn’t wake up calmly, but violently jerks into consciousness, covered in sweat and breathing heavy. He tries to find comfort with the ones he shares bed with, even if they aren’t Zayn, but it isn’t at all the same. 

Louis sleeps too deeply to notice anything, Harry frowns and blindly reaches a hand out and Liam asks, he asks, “Fuck, are you okay?” 

He sits up in the bed as well, Niall can feel his eyes bore into his back with questions _(are you okay, what is wrong, what is going on, what is this, can you please tell me)_ and Niall ignores them. 

He nods, mumbles a, “Yeah”, and lies back down again, turning his back against Liam (like he always does). 

Normally he waits until the other has gone back to sleep and then, sometimes, usually, he sneaks out to find Zayn. Zayn even hands him an extra cardkey to his room at every hotel they stay in, without explaining why, casually, like it’s always been that way. When he later wakes up and finds Niall in his bed, he always pulls him closer and pats his hair in his sleep like he knew he’d be there. 

Liam takes a long time before he goes back to sleep, doesn’t go back to sleep at all, but continues to sit up in the bed and stare into Niall’s back. In the darkness there is nothing but breathing, rising and falling of chest, and licking of lips that can be heard. He suddenly shuffles back under the covers again, but now it’s closer, Niall can feel it, so much closer. 

There’s a hand to his hip, circling, until it slides down and lies flat on Niall’s stomach and then Liam’s mouth is by his ear, chest pressing into his back, and he asks, “Don’t you trust me and – ?” more and more, _questionsquestionsquestions,_ moremoremore, into his ear until Niall falls back asleep and dreams of a giant question mark, yellow in cardboard or rubber, jumping like a mascot. 

Liam is gone when he wakes up, the daylight making everything much more real than in the darkness, Niall knows. His phone rings, a dull scream, and he answers without looking at the screen. 

“Niall”, his grandmother says on the other end. He loses all his breath to be able to say anything back, shock too big, and then she hangs up again, quickly. He stares at his phone, thinking that he’s going insane, hearing his grandmother say his name even outside his head. 

He gets dressed, joins the others at breakfast, and sits down next to Zayn, close, and doesn’t look at anyone but him. 

“Aren’t you going to eat your breakfast?” Liam asks somewhere on his other side, question, and Niall silently answers by putting a piece of dry toast in his mouth. 

-

He makes a quick phone call to his mum, telling her of the call he got from – presumably got – from his grandmother. 

“Yes”, she says, voice soft. “She has been calling all of us, asking.” 

Niall wonders if that doesn’t mean that she’s getting better, that she should be able to go home again. If she remembers their names, then she might remember something else, might remember who _she_ is. 

“I don’t think so, sweetheart”, she says and crushes all his hope. “Alzheimer comes with a lot of ups and downs. Sometimes she remembers, but mostly she doesn’t.”

Niall hangs up his phone, doesn’t want to talk to someone who doesn’t dare to hope and believe in something _better_ and he makes the quick decision to get awfully drunk in the night. He invites the boys with him, pulling at Zayn’s hand and tapping Liam’s back, and they all – including Louis and Harry – agree to come with him. 

Getting drunk sounds like underachievement, getting wasted sounds like _Bingo!_

He dances, does shots with strangers, stumbles and falls, gets back up again, laughs into Louis’ shoulder while he rambles on and on in fluent French, and pushes thoughts away, away, away until he doesn’t hear his grandmother’s voice in his head. 

Zayn dances with him, holds on to him with strong arms, guiding the way, and snickers into Niall’s ear every time he says something without really thinking like when he tries to mimic Louis’ French. Liam, only having a few beers but intoxicated nevertheless, laughs with them, dances with Harry and Lou, until night turns to dawn and it’s time to head back home. 

Niall is on his way to his and Harry’s room when they’re back at the hotel, shouting inappropriately with the others in the hotel corridor and laughing hysterically, he really is. But then his arm gets caught with Liam’s and he is pulled along to his and Zayn’s room (like he wouldn’t end up there eventually anyway) and Harry and Louis disappear in another direction. 

They turn the music up high, dance around, and Niall gets his camera out, snaps a few blurry pictures while he laughs loudly and then throws the camera to Liam who proceeds to take a few photos of his own. 

It doesn’t take long until they’re exhausted, too much to drink and too much jumping around and dancing, and the three of them collapse on the bed together. Liam, Niall and Zayn – in that order, in their usual sandwich. 

Liam seems to fall asleep immediately, a few beers being too much for him, but Niall and Zayn stay awake, muffling their soft laughs and playing with fingers. They twine and trace and pull in the red dawn, Zayn staring at him through heavy eyelashes and Niall smiling, their hearts beating loudly. The other boy suddenly releases his grasp and puts his hand on Niall’s hip instead, over to the small of his back, warmth, so much warmth, and pulls a little, yanks. 

It takes a short, heavy heartbeat until Niall gets what he’s trying to insinuate and lets himself get pulled until he’s on top of Zayn, thighs either side of his waist, and gazing down, staring into each other’s eyes for the sole purpose of finding that the other one is looking back. 

Zayn reaches his hand up, cups Niall’s cheek until fingers find neck and push into hair, and pulls him down until their lips meet and _this is where life changes_ Niall thinks and enjoys the minty taste of Zayn’s lips (thanks to all those mint shots) against his own. 

It’s careful, their lips only pressing together without moving, and then Zayn tilts his head slightly to the side, fingers firmer on Niall’s neck, and captures the blonde’s bottom lip, sucking. There are a few pecks, the noisy kind which echoes against walls, and then Zayn licks at the corner of Niall’s mouth and slowly his tongue slinks in. 

The older boy kisses like he cherishes every second of it, takes his time and makes it into something to remember, his tongue finding Niall’s gently, chasing and disappearing, teeth almost pressed against each other, and then finally firmer. Tongue gets deeper, _taking,_ and Niall’s tongue works against it as smoothly as possible – even though he has to admit to not being as good of a kisser as Zayn is – his body pressing down, down, until their kiss is broken and he hides his face in Zayn’s neck, cheeks burning. 

They fall asleep too fast, without getting a chance to say anything (if there is anything that needs to be said) and Niall dreams of nothing, feeling intent straddled on top of Zayn with his arms around his back. 

As usual, Liam is gone when they wake up – bodies aching from strange positions of sleeping, Niall isn’t all that sure his knees will ever work properly again – with the only evidence of him ever being there in the first place being the slightly crumpled sheets. Niall sighs against Zayn’s neck, lets his mind drift to another place, while the other boy strokes his back reassuringly and probably with the smallest intentions of trying to get them both to wake up fully. 

Eventually, Niall climbs off of Zayn, realizing he’s still completely dressed, his head aches and he wishes to throw up. 

“I’ll go and get cleaned up”, he says and manages to smile before disappearing back to the room he shares with Harry.

It’s empty when he gets there, _good,_ then he can throw up without anyone bothering. He empties his insides in the toilet, yellow goo, downs two tablets of ibuprofen and steps into a hot shower. His muscles and limbs ache but, after minutes and minutes in the steaming water, it does get better. His head gets clearer. 

There’s knocking on the door as he gets dressed, Zayn coming to get him, and together they walk down to have breakfast with the awaiting Liam. There are no questions in Liam’s eyes today, but only answers which Niall hasn’t given him. Not intentionally anyway. It’s like he has finally understood something that’s been bugging him. 

“Um”, he says when Niall and Zayn sit down by the table, looking like they’ve been run over by a million trucks and then drowned in liquor. They don’t say anything, but start eating, and Liam opens his mouth to say something else, but is interrupted by Louis’s loud cheering and the others’ groans. The moment is gone. 

-

He still likes to be alone, sometimes, during the bright daylight when he’s got his camera with him as company. Niall can’t break his habit of snapping pictures of every place they visit, determined to keep the memories so he can one day think back of this time and how good (bad) it was. 

It’s been almost five months away from home and he wonders if the others miss it as well, if it sometimes scratches and aches real badly under their nails with how much they miss home. (Niall isn’t even sure a home exists anymore for him, or if his parents already have changed his old room into a gym or given it to one of his siblings.) He figures he might move in with Harry, if he asks very nicely and flutters his eyelashes a bit. 

Still, though, it’s times away and there’s no way to know when they will be back – Louis said something about them all _knowing_ when the time was right. 

As the sun sets, Niall takes the opportunity to catch it with his camera, takes many pictures because it would be a waste not to with something as beautiful as it. He can spend hours walking around, his phone left back at the hotel to get away from everything, and taking pictures of the tiniest of things. It usually ends up like this, at a new beach with a different sunset – yet the same, the same sun – and then he slowly walks back to the hotel, bare feet and toes burying in the sand, dragging and he wonders if his grandmother’s feet was dragging behind her as well when they locked her up, if she even knew what was going on. 

Niall swipes the cardkey to Zayn’s single bedroom, _Niall, Niall, Niall_ in his head as he gets in, heartbeat speeding up and his gut an empty pit. He tries to breathe, wants to speak out loud, needs to say _something_ but the darkness is suffocating and rough – always unforgiving, especially when it comes to him. 

He finds his way over to the bed, about to climb in, trembling, but stops at the edge when he realizes it’s too quiet in there. The lack of snoring is a perfect giveaway, he wonders if Zayn knows. 

“I –“, he tries, but fails to keep his voice strong. It’s as dark, in there, as the thick cloud of black birds haunting him. He shivers, finds only boxers and a t-shirt too cold for the night. 

There’s silence until suddenly there’s covers being pulled back and a thick, heavy, “C’mere, then.”

Niall swallows and climbs into the bed. Zayn has been waiting – Niall wonders for how long exactly, when did he get to bed, when – and Niall can’t help but think that he’s become predictable, a simple habit in Zayn’s life. It feels good, though, Zayn expects him now, it’s a routine and it feels good, it makes Niall feel less _alone._

Zayn opens his arms up for him, the smaller bed making it impossible to be anything but close, and pulls him in, holds him and pulls the covers tight around them. Niall’s head lands on his bare arm, warm, and he hears a pulse, steady like a working train. Zayn puts his other arm around Niall’s waist, hand resting on his chest and pushing until Niall’s back is properly aligned against his chest. 

Breath, tickling Niall’s ear and calming his heart down, is the only thing he hears and he swallows as Zayn moves, his nose resting against his jaw and lips pressing against his t-shirt clad shoulder. 

He thinks, _fuck,_ and wonders, wants to ask or say, _what, are you-, should I, I don’t know if-, should we._ But Zayn moves his hand, palm sliding down Niall’s chest to the hem of his t-shirt and slips in, warm against his skin and slow, careful. He takes a breath and pushes himself up, bends the arm under Niall’s head and forces him to face him, to find his eyes in the darkness. 

Niall sees it, sees _him,_ and how his eyes concentrate on something lower, Niall’s mouth probably, and then he looks up and meets his eyes, fingernails scraping against skin under his shirt and making Niall shiver. 

“Tell me you want this, Ni, tell me”, he says and suddenly Niall thinks of Liam, thinks of Lou and Harry too, and wonders if he’s crossing some kind of boundary here, if he’s fucking things up. He thinks that he should say no, because it would be selfish not to, but then again he likes being selfish when it comes to Zayn, likes _being able_ to be selfish when it comes to Zayn. It’s just so easy, like slipping on a banana peel and landing safely. 

So, he nods, reaches a hand up to the back of Zayn’s neck and pulls him down, down. The other boy swallows Niall’s air, sucks onto his bottom lip with a steady hiss, teeth biting down and tongue licking its way in. 

He gets it, as Zayn’s hand reaches down to cup him through his boxers, that Zayn has done this before, always the experienced one unlike Niall with only a few drunken kisses here and there, some with his childhood friend Josh and some with strangers, and it makes him feel safe, it does. Still, when Zayn’s hand wraps around his dick and _squeezes,_ Niall hesitates and breaks away from their kiss and Zayn mouths at his jaw instead, his hand working steadily, pumping. 

“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do”, Zayn mumbles and Niall whimpers, feels how hard Zayn is as he grinds up against his lower back, presses against his bum. 

Niall _doesn’t know, doesn’t know, doesn’t know_ and Zayn’s hand continues to pump, faster, only pulling back to let his own dick out from his own boxers and then he grinds, rocks against Niall from behind while stroking his dick with a firm hand. 

With lips by his ear, murmuring something Niall can’t comprehend, he comes, groans deeply into the pillow and shoots his load over the sheets. Zayn continues to grind up against his bum, hand still holding on to Niall’s slack dick, and Niall reaches blindly back to get a grip, to help, but then Zayn bites into his shoulder, no, his t-shirt and Niall feels a few steady spasms behind him and listens to his erratic breathing as he comes. 

There are a few sloppy kisses to his neck, Zayn humming low and burying his nose in Niall’s hair. He holds on to him, tight, with sticky sheets making it uncomfortable but their exhaustion winning in the end. They fall asleep and Niall dreams of… nothing. 

-

This is all Zayn has to say: “Ni, let’s do it, let’s”, and suddenly Niall’s life has changed again. It happens, like some kind of freak accident, they just ease into it. Niall has never been one for relationships, ever, but he thinks _yeah, maybe_ and tries it. 

They get up early one morning, just after break of dawn, with their heavy backpacks on their backs, a snapback plopped onto Niall’s head with a hoodie, borrowed from Zayn, pulled over it for warmth and to hide his sleepy mess and the five of them find a train and head into a new city. 

They sleep for the most part of the beginning of the trip – Niall’s head is resting on Zayn’s chest, uncomfortably, but still – and in the middle of it all, he wakes with a gasp from his dream, clammy and disoriented (in the dream he and his seven-year-old self have started running from the birds and they never seem to be able to stop). 

Luckily, the others are sleeping, even Zayn, and he doesn’t get any unwanted questions but then Niall glances to his right, only quick, and sees Liam staring back at him, infinite questions in those brown eyes. As usual, Niall ignores him and hides his face in Zayn’s shoulder, but then a hand finds his hip – familiar yet not as familiar as Zayn’s – and fingers press in until Niall falls asleep, wakes up closer to a new city and a new adventure, finds the fingers gone. Only tiny, red spots left on his skin as proof. 

Sometime later during the ride, when they’re all awake, Niall lays his head down in Zayn’s lap and his feet somewhere else – Liam’s lap actually, of course, when he comes to think of it – and giggles at Zayn calling Louis names. Even though it’s still morning, they’ve shared a bottle of scotch between them when no one’s watching, and it makes everything funnier (than it probably is). 

Zayn and Louis get into some banter and Harry and Niall smirk, ever the same at heart, and Niall then interrupts before it gets too heated, proudly saying, “C’mere”, secretively. 

Zayn raises his eyebrows, Niall nods encouragingly, and then the other boy leans down and presses his lips to Niall’s. Louis groans somewhere in the distance and Niall and Zayn grin into their kiss, deepening it only to tease Lou further, Niall’s hand on the back of Zayn’s head. 

Suddenly, Louis makes some stupid remark which Niall doesn’t interpret, but he’s only kidding, only kidding, and Zayn breaks away with a, “Fuck off, Lou! It’s not like we don’t get to watch you two do it all the time.” 

Zayn grins though, always grins, and Louis wriggles his eyebrows challengingly and then Zayn is jumping the other boy, chasing him around the train until someone, a conductor, tells them off. Harry and Niall laugh their asses off and Liam… Liam is busy staring into his phone, not giving a fuck of what happens around him, and not showing even a hint of a smile. 

-

When they reach their destination, Niall gets the call _(I’m sorry, son. It’s just after everything with your grandmother and – )._

It doesn’t come as a surprise, his parents’ final decision to get that inevitable divorce. Not really. Zayn slings an arm around his shoulders, doesn’t say anything but leads the way to the hotel instead and Niall is too tired to care. 

Liam’s got a girlfriend back home, Danielle, who’s still stuck at uni. Liam loves Danielle, that’s it. He loves her so much he has to text her, _texttexttext,_ all the time. 

Lately, even though Niall got the impression they were keeping it casual, he spends more time staring into his phone than he does talking with any of the others – sometimes Niall catches him staring into his phone during the very late hours of the night, when he wakes up to the tapping and the light that illuminates the room – and Niall wonders when everything changed this much. (Has anything changed, though? Everything is still so much the same, Liam is still his old self – as is Niall, Zayn, Haz and Lou – except when he isn’t. The world is still turning, the sun still shines so bright.) 

They’re out having fun, trying out strange sorts of coffee and laughing loudly and even if Liam smiles, he still grabs his phone, makes a phone call and excuses himself. He loves Danielle so fucking much that he calls her and asks if she can take a weekend off and meet up with them. Niall isn’t even surprised when she agrees to it, so very eagerly. 

Now, when she’s there, they won’t have to do rock, paper, scissors to divide themselves up for the rooms (Louis does suggest it though, grinning, and Harry hits him in the head). They can all sleep with who they _really_ want to sleep with. 

For hours, during the first day she’s with them, Niall doesn’t see Liam at all, only catches a few giggles as he and Danielle disappear into their room or off somewhere else. During the second night, Niall and Zayn agree to come with Li and Dani out after she begs _please_ a few times too many. 

Niall can’t help but show some hesitance – feeling perfectly comfortable and content in the embrace of Zayn’s arms, or in his lap, and watching telly or whatever – but then brown eyes grow big with questions and Niall agrees quickly only to make them go away, make them _stop._

They go to some nice restaurant around the corner with a nice view, Danielle’s choice because she’s clever like that and fast (considering she’s only been there for a day), and when Niall sits down he happens, like always, to land between Liam and Zayn, lips brushing Zayn’s shoulder and knee brushing Liam’s thigh. Danielle smiles, brightly, and Niall gets why Liam is so in love with her. She’s a lovely girl, kind and carefree, and Niall has to admit he sometimes wishes he was a lot more like her. 

“ – and then I ran into Justin Bieber backstage! He’s such a nice guy, really, so kind. You’d love him”, Danielle says to Niall, excitedly with big eyes and a smile that reaches her temples, because Danielle is cool enough to be a dancer, a proper one who gets to meet all the celebrities back in London. 

Liam laces his fingers with hers, while staring into the menu, and she stops talking and smile grows softer with cheeks turning pink. 

Niall stares and feels a hand land on his thigh under the table, squeezing in an almost reassuring way and going slowly up. His attention is stolen away, brown eyes staring through eyelashes gets too mesmerising, and he leans into Zayn like Zayn’s skin is working with gravity. It leaves a slight space between Niall’s stomach and the edge of the table, and Liam glances down from the menu at his lap and Zayn’s hand, quick but not quick enough for Niall to miss it, and then he puts the menu down on the table and calls the waiter over. 

They go to the cinema after that, in the darkness of the night and Zayn drops an arm around Niall’s shoulders and pulls him close to murmur something Niall doesn’t pay attention to into his ear. 

Zayn and Liam agree on which movie to watch, laughs and points at posters, showing the closeness and friendship they shared – share – and Niall disagrees, argues, while Danielle shrugs and says she doesn’t mind what they see. Carefree and kind, right. Niall isn’t very good at playing that yet. 

He pouts, glares, and Zayn chuckles – a low rumble in the back of his throat –, pushes his glasses further up his nose, takes his hand and pulls him in close. 

This he pays attention to, when Zayn whispers in his ear, “Remember that movie I told you about where the guy fucks the girl up against a wall? This is the one, babe, why don’t we check it out?” 

His lips linger hotly by Niall’s ear, waits him out, until the Irish boy nods because his dick twitched at the _promise_ behind Zayn’s words. When Zayn pulls back, satisfied smile on his lips, Niall catches Liam’s stupid wonder on his face. _Niall wonders_ if Danielle ever sees that face and those eyes, if she’s ever as bothered as he is by them. 

They get the whole cinema to themselves, apparently no one’s been there to see that movie for weeks (but Niall sees Liam slip the staff a few extra euros) and they run in like eager kids, a bit tipsy from the late-night wine. 

They run around in the light, sing along to the Universal Studios theme song in high-pitched voices, touch the screen with quick hands like it’ll catch on fire and because it’s supposedly forbidden, laugh, create shadows to make it look like the really hot actor is getting his nose picked, pretend to cry loudly at heartfelt moments, throw popcorn and shout and yell, even drinks are squirted through teeth, Danielle sighs, Liam is sorry, Zayn smiles with buttered popcorn in his hair and Niall kisses him. 

He latches on to his lower lip, arms around his neck, and his teeth grazes wet skin until Zayn quickly angles his head, reciprocating with force, and delves his tongue into Niall’s mouth, sliding over teeth, and their bodies, their bodies make a big, moving shadow on the screen and the actor and actress dance together over their skin, happily. 

“Aww”, Danielle coos and giggles somewhere in a row farther back, or maybe Niall only imagines it because that’s the picture he’s got of her in his head, typical Danielle. 

Zayn pulls away, their foreheads sticking together and he gazes deeply into Niall’s eyes as he calms down his breathing. 

“This is the scene”, he says against the blonde’s lips and he turns his head. Niall ends up watching his boyfriend’s face and his growing smile – ideas getting into his head while watching the scene – and he holds on tightly to his hand and thinks _yes._

Eventually he leans his head against the older boy’s shoulder and watches the last of the guy and girl fucking against a wall, and then Liam and Danielle joins them in the front row and watch the end of the movie, quietly. 

Danielle ends up with tears running down her cheeks and mascara staining them, but nevertheless at all afraid to show her emotions. Niall holds on to Zayn’s hand tightly at the _I love yous_ and he swears he spots a tear rolling down the other boy’s cheek (Zayn denies it later). Liam holds his girlfriend while she cries, pats her hair and mumbles into her ear, because he loves her that much, and his free arm swings over the backrest, casually, behind Niall. Fingers play absentmindedly with blonde hair, softly, experimenting, until the lights are turned on and the credits roll. 

Niall picks the popcorn out of Zayn’s hair, eats it and grins, and then they all leave tip behind for the workers at the cinema for cleaning up the mess they’ve made. 

-

“I’m gonna go back home with Danielle”, Liam says, after six and a half months away from their normal civilization. 

Louis hums, pushes his sunglasses further up his nose, his tan looking perfect in the late afternoon and says, shrugging, “Maybe it’s time for all of us to go back home.”

Right, home. Niall still hasn’t figured that out yet, doesn’t know what he’ll do when he gets back. The others, they’re finished with uni and have been for nearly seven months back, but he isn’t. He left midway through, jumped on a plane with these four boys and hoped he’d never have to return again. 

Maybe they’re right though, Niall can hear his name being called inside his head as if he’s _supposed_ to return. 

Zayn nudges his shoulder with his own while the others talk, and he blows out smoke heavily from his mouth, rests his free hand on Niall’s thigh and says, casually, “Come back with me.”

Danielle laughs loudly at a joke Harry makes (something about him tutoring her in psychology when they get back home, something about Freud and _the oral stage_ and this time it’s Louis who hits him in the head instead), it snaps Niall’s attention and he looks over and he doesn’t find Liam staring at him, sees no questions but only a smile as he looks at Danielle and takes her hand. 

Niall thinks of his grandmother, for only a split second and still manages to wonder what she would think of him if she saw him now, if she would think he’s wasting his life, his potential. 

He manages a smile when he looks back at Zayn and says, “Sure”, as if he actually had any other choice. 

Together they all book a flight back to London and Niall spends his last night in freedom, or whatever else he would describe it, by staring at his last sunset. Zayn finds him eventually and sits down in the sand behind him, chest pressed to back and holds Niall tight until it goes dark and the sunset is forever lost. Niall thinks it would be a perfect night to just stay there, together, and enjoy the silence. 

Zayn continues to hold on to him and doesn’t seem like he wants to move. Niall knows something Zayn doesn’t, knows that every perfect dream has to end and he pulls himself free, gets up and reaches out for the other boy’s hand. Zayn takes it, gets up as well and then they walk back towards their hotel in silence until their bodies are lost in the darkness for anyone else to see. 

-

“I love you so fucking much”, Zayn growls into his mouth. “So, so much, Ni. So much it hurts.”

It’s been five months, they have been together for five months and Niall’s head is spinning. 

He tries to respond, tries to put his feelings into any form of words to tell the person who currently means _everything_ to him. He can’t though, because his breath hitches in his throat, gets caught until he has to cough it out, and he moans when Zayn snaps his hips into him _just right._ He throws his head back, to the side, bites the pillow, grabs the headboard, then at Zayn’s back, the sheets, _fuckfuckfuck._

He has to pull his hips back, the feeling gets too much and the tingling in his lower stomach and in his chest threatens to make him cramp up. The older boy’s dick slides out of him, obscenely slick in his condom, and Niall’s whole body shakes, shakes so badly, and he grips the sheets tighter and writhes his body without even being touched. 

Zayn licks his fingers and reaches down to circle his hole, the stretched and used muscle, pink and puffy, and pushes in a little, teasing, and Niall reaches shaky arms up and pulls him down by the neck, teeth clashing. His boyfriend grips his thighs and drags him down, pushes in between, and slowly, slowly forces his cock back inside Niall’s wet and hot space again. 

Niall shakes his head but means yes, _Zayn knows,_ and the slow pace of being filled again makes his head want to implode. 

“Shit”, he breathes out, spits out, and pushes his tongue into Zayn’s mouth and then – “Move, please move.” 

Zayn does as he wishes – pulls almost all the way out and then throws himself back in, repeat. Niall gasps with every thrust, each thrust getting him into an even worse state, and the other boy nibbles his neck, draws teeth over his collarbone, grips his hips tightly, but tries to be careful. 

He mumbles, “Let me see, Niall. Let me see.” 

And the blonde nods his head jerkily, barely even hearing what he’s saying and Zayn stills and carefully manoeuvres Niall to his right side. There’s a bandage, there, on the left side of his lower back, close to the hip, and the dark-haired boy gently rips at the corner and lifts it to reveal the freshly made tattoo hidden under. 

If you stand, or are directly behind Niall and watch the tattoo from there, it’ll look like a simple, in two centimetres in diameters, black ‘N’ printed onto the creamy, white skin. But if you look at it from the side, like Zayn is doing right now, the letter looks like a ‘Z’. It’s secretive and _theirs._

Zayn’s got a freshly-made tattoo as well, a ‘Z’, on his inner thigh so when Niall is nestled in between his legs, sucking his cock, he can turn his head and watch the ‘N’ that forms. (Niall thinks time moves so quickly and he still doesn’t know how he ended up here.) 

“I love you too”, Niall finally says, answers, during the short pause, as he’s now able to think and speak. 

Zayn moves his hips at that, begins to thrust again like the tattoo spurs him on. He pushes against Niall’s left thigh, angles it up and bends, and keeps Niall on his right side by pushing his hand down on his hip. The thrusts are deep and sharp, and Niall watches through foggy vision as Zayn grits his teeth and groans through them, then he bends down and bites milky skin, licks Niall’s shoulder and grasps his dick. 

The blonde whines, shuts his eyes tightly and blindly brings Zayn to his lips. _Fuckfuckfuck._ He gasps into Zayn’s mouth, their breaths mixing, feels the hot and heavy cock snap into him a few times more, and then he bites down on Zayn’s lip and shoots his load, mind emptying itself, and a white light appearing behind his eyelids. Niall sounds like a dying bird when he breathes, heavily, and waits for Zayn to finish himself off, clamps down around him. 

“Fuck”, Zayn spits and thrusts into Niall, then empties himself, erratic spasms inside Niall’s hole. 

He keeps still inside his boyfriend, eyes closed and purely _feeling,_ and then he lazily puts the bandage back fully on Niall’s skin and pulls out. 

With caring fingers, he moves Niall back to lie on his back, probably aware of how aching Niall’s legs are and his hip from the way Zayn pushed down on it, and spreads his legs so he can lie down in between them. He kisses his neck softly, until he falls asleep on top of Niall, completely covering his body with his own. 

It takes a while, then the younger boy slumbers into sleep as well and dreams of the letters ‘N’ and ‘Z’, in olive-gold and milky white, melting together like honey and cream. 

-

Even though Zayn told him he was welcome at his and Liam’s place, even though he pushed a key into Niall’s palm, Niall chose to move in with Harry. 

He explained that it was too early, that he was afraid it’ll ruin things. (Really, he just couldn’t stand the thought of living with Liam and being forced to look into those big, brown eyes of questions every day. He gets enough of that – has gotten enough of that – when he’s over, visiting.) 

Niall doesn’t know when and where all the tension came from, he asked Zayn at one point, worriedly, if _everything is okay between him and Liam_ and Zayn assured him it was, is. 

Still, Niall can’t help but feel like he has gotten in between the two best friends. Zayn and Liam has known each other since forever, have always been close like brothers and Niall might be fucked up and selfish sometimes but he really doesn’t want to mess that up, doesn’t want that to weigh down on his conscious. He’s already too exhausted to be able to carry that. 

It’s during one night, when Zayn is out getting drunk with Lou and Haz, that Niall agrees to watch a movie with Liam. (Zayn begged him to come with him out, but Niall’s head is too tired and his body is too exhausted, no.) Danielle is rehearsing some dance, Liam has barely seen her in a while and Niall guesses he must be a bit bored and alone, and Niall knows how it feels to be alone, he’s an expert. 

They watch _Superbad_ and they laugh loudly in their soberness, point at the stupid things the boys do on the telly and holds onto their sides in cramp. Niall laughs the loudest, cheeks burning red and eyes bleary, his tiredness making everything funny, and sinks fingers into his greasy hair. 

When he reaches forward to snatch some popcorn of the table, his sweater slides up a bit on his back and Liam asks, asks “What’s that?”, all laughter gone. 

The blonde sits back again, throws popcorn into his mouth, shrugs and mumbles, “Nothing”, with eyes focused on the screen, “It’s a tattoo.”

He pretends not to notice the way Liam stares at him, eyes burning into his skin, and making it impossible for Niall to sit still. He squirms a bit in his seat and leans forward a bit again. Suddenly he feels his shirt getting pulled up to reveal his back and fingers touching, but still not really. 

“You didn’t tell me you got a tattoo”, Liam mumbles behind him and it’s so low it’s almost impossible for him to hear. 

It rings in the younger boy’s ears though, like a mean echo against the walls, as irritating as _NiallNiallNiall._ Niall shrugs again, a movement barely noticeable, but he knows Liam catches it.  
“It’s just a tattoo”, he says. 

“A little, black _‘N’,_ huh?” 

Liam sits back up. He gets it, he really does, and Niall knows Liam sees the tattoo for what it really is, can’t help himself to. He tries to smile, but fails. The movie ends and Liam offers him a beer, like he has completely forgotten they wanted to stay the whole night sober, and Niall declines, watches as Liam downs one anyway. 

He avoids the question that exists in Liam’s whole face, on the tip of his tongue. _Why, when, why and how._ He puts on some music instead and eventually gets saved from his uncomfortable position next to Liam when Harry and Louis suddenly come through the door, with Zayn following wearing a wide grin, rushing forward to press a quick kiss to the corner of Niall’s mouth. 

“Are you having a party or something without us?” Harry shouts and looks at Liam suspiciously. 

Zayn laughs, runs over and hugs Liam from behind where he’s standing by the kitchen counter, ruffles his hair. The three drunk youngsters sing along loudly to the music Niall has put on, _Where Is My Mind_ by Pixies, with all the emotion they can find and Niall can’t help but smile. Zayn dances up to him, his mood quickly changing from mildly crazy to a slow smile and dark, dark eyes. He corners Niall where he’s sitting on the arm rest of the couch, bends down and lets hands slip around his hips, fingers finding the tattoo as they slip in under his shirt. 

“Hi”, he says, a tiny chuckle and then, “Stay in my room tonight”, a murmur into Niall’s ear, with playful nibbling at his lobe which leads to small pecks to his cheek. 

Zayn’s drunk, that much is obvious. It’s not like Niall has anything against it, but he doesn’t find it as appealing when he himself is sober. He giggles still, though, because Zayn is crazy and he loves that, loves the warmth of his boyfriend against him. 

“I can’t sleep without you”, Zayn continues, hand slipping up Niall’s back and his nose dragging over Niall’s cheekbone until lips find the Irish boy’s, pecking. 

He thinks it’s funny, he really does, that not that long ago _Niall_ was the one unable to sleep without Zayn. Now it seems to be the other way around. 

Zayn kisses him gently, still tiny pecks, until Louis and Harry sing so loud they’re shouting and he breaks away from him and laughs as the unbreakable duo dance around the uncomfortable-looking Liam. His body vibrates with his lover’s laughter, humming from how Zayn’s pressing his temple to Niall’, and then Louis shouts, “Liam, dance with us, mate! Show us all your moves.”

Liam doesn’t, shakes his head and smiles instead. Harry and Lou run out of there again, stealing a few beers and pulling at Zayn’s arm before they go. 

“Promise to stay”, Zayn says against his lips and Niall nods, quickly. Then he is left to finish the strange _whatever_ with Liam, muttering some bad excuse and feigning a yawn so he can disappear into Zayn’s bedroom – all the while having Liam stare at him, _questions_ everywhere.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so lazy, I couldn't be bothered to edit the full second part so you'll get my story in three parts instead, sorry! (I hate html code and I hate school, okay)

When August comes, they’ve been at home for four months and Niall’s been with Zayn for six months and loved him for three, Niall decides to take some time to visit his grandmother. 

Zayn tells him, speaking dully and muffled into Niall’s palms, “If you want me to come with, then all you have to do is say so.”

Niall doesn’t say anything, only crawls into Zayn’s lap and lets his head rest in the crook of his neck, their fingers playing and both their minds swirling. He thinks that time and change can’t touch them now, while they sit together like this, and their shallow breaths in each other’s ears is the only thing they can hear. (It’s a lie, though. Niall can hear lots of other things, can see a lot of things too. Like how his seven-year-old self disappears in his dream and leaves him alone in the woods, alone.)

He leaves the day after, pressing kisses over every inch of Zayn’s face, like he needs it to remember, a memory, and travels to the northern parts of Ireland. He hasn’t spoken to his parents in almost a month, couldn’t make himself, and they don’t know anything at all about his trip. It doesn’t matter, they wouldn’t care anyway, just like they don’t care about his grandmother. He doesn’t know what to expect when he sees her. Months before, his mum told him he shouldn’t expect anything at all, but that would be like treating his grandmother like she’s already dead and she isn’t. She isn’t. 

Niall thinks of Danielle, tries to imagine what she’d be like if she was the one visiting her sick grandmother. He decides to show that he’s happy. Because that’s what he is, that’s what Danielle would be as well. Happy, so goddamn, fucking happy. (It doesn’t matter that his dreams try and tell him otherwise.) 

He rents a car, drives where there’s no blue sky to be seen, drives to a darker place. He decides to see his grandmother before he takes a look at her old house (it hasn’t been sold and he’s been holding on to his key to it like it’s a lifeline) in case there’s anything she’d like him to do when he gets there, water the flowers, whatever. He sleeps in a motel during the first night, a single bedroom, alone again, and there the dream pops into his head and he runs, runs, until his kid-self is gone. The birds are closing in. 

He visits the nursery home his grandmother stays in during the early hours of the morning, as he can’t sleep anyway. The ladies working there are all warm smiles, comforting handshakes and pats on his shoulders and Niall wonders if he might’ve made the wrong decision. Maybe he shouldn’t have come here on his own. They lead him to her room, knocks on her door for him and say _love, you’ve got a visitor._

His grandmother sits by her window, staring out at the grey sky and rain and she slowly turns her head, smiling. The corners of Niall’s mouth spasm and his eyes tear up, and he doesn’t know if it’s because of his _happiness_ or something else, unknown. He rushes up to her and throws his arms around her neck, feeling like the little kid he used to be (the one in the dream) when he lived with her during the summers. She pats his back and hums something in his ear and Niall hugs her tighter, thinks that he has to get her out of here somehow because she can’t live the rest of her days here, she deserves better. He lets go of the elderly woman, slowly, and she wipes away his tears with her thumbs, soft, so soft. 

“We’re serving tea soon”, the nurse behind him says, interrupts their beautiful silence and the magic. “How do you like your tea?” 

“Bobby drinks it with lots of cream and sugar, don’t you sweetheart?” his grandmother says, her smile widening and eyes glistening. 

Happiness. Right. Happiness is like another echo in his mind, just like _Niall._ It’s wrong and shouldn’t be there. 

“Grandma, I’m Niall”, he says, slowly, and she blinks like she isn’t even listening. 

He turns to the nurse who gives him a crooked smile and, “Some days are worse than others. How do you really like your tea?” 

“Like that”, he shrugs, because he has been drinking his tea the same way as his own dad as long as he can remember. He wonders if his grandmother remembers that part of him or if she genuinely believes he’s her son. 

He sits down on the other chair by the window as soon as the nurse leaves and takes his grandmother’s hand in his. He glances around the room, notices most of her personal belongings are in here (old as well as new pictures of _everyone_ ¬ pictures Niall has taken during his early days and given to her, it stings in his chest –, that old clock his grandfather gave her, the painting she made when she studied art, her glittery jewelleries, the tiny bed she made for her cat but no cat to be seen around), and wonders how empty the house will look like when he gets there. It won’t be _her_ house anymore. 

“I’ve missed you”, he says, mumbles. “Do you like it here?” 

She sighs, her hand going slack in his, and stares back out the window again, her blue eyes getting grey with the weather outside. 

“Here’s fine. But they don’t let me go outside. I miss the sun, I even miss rain”, she says, voice light and almost dreamy in a way. 

She smiles, though, and turns back to look at him as soon as the nurse with hot tea and cookies gets back. They both thank her, politeness runs in the family, and then they’re left alone once again. 

“How are you, Bobby?” she wonders and the pain in Niall’s chest grows, grows until he thinks he won’t be able to breathe. He doesn’t want _her_ to be gone. 

Some milky-brown tea gets spilled as he brings the cup to his lips with a shaky hand, and he clears his throat, tries to be happy, strong, brave, tries to be everything he wishes to be. All the things his grandmother taught him to be when he grew up, while his parents were busy fighting. 

“I’m fine”, he says and manages a smile, plays his part in stupid _politeness._

The rain hammers against the window and pulls his grandmother’s attention yet again. She frowns, stares at the droplets on the window and her hand goes slack again. 

“They don’t let me go outside”, she repeats, quieter now, almost a whisper. 

“I’ll talk to them”, he promises quickly, squeezes her hand and she looks back at him, almost startled, but squeezes his hand too nevertheless. 

Smiles, dimples showing. She offers him a cookie, tells him that she baked them earlier, and he takes one and tells her it’s one of the best cookies he has ever tasted. 

He sits with her for an hour and they don’t say much. Before, when he was a kid, they used to talk all the time. No one could shut them up, people complained during the Christmas dinners and told them their annoying laughs were exactly the same. She gave him his first camera during one of those Christmases. She was the one who led him _here,_ to this life, whatever it is. She told him to study photography, become a proper photographer but then she forgot all about it and Niall left school quicker than perhaps possible. She gave him _everything,_ taught him to love his creations and be proud, and now he can’t even thank her properly, because she doesn’t remember any of it. It’s gone, all the memories, blown away in the wind. Simply forgotten. But then. 

“How’s your son, Bobby? Is he okay? He’s so small, I’m afraid he might break something by simply falling on his bottom”, she says, chuckles a bit, and shakes her head. 

Niall smiles and holds on to her hand with both of his hands. 

“He’s okay. He misses you a lot though”, he tells her and her eyes grow watery, and Niall can’t help but think that she _wants_ to remember, somewhere deep in, so badly. “He wants to tell you, thanks.”

It’s his only chance and he has to take it. This is better than nothing. 

“Thanks? Thanks for what?” 

“Just… everything.” 

Later, when he leaves her, after many hours spent staring at the rain, he asks the nurses why they won’t let her go outside. He remembers how happy she was in her garden, even after granddad died, like a sanctuary, and he tells them she’d maybe be better if they let her take a small walk during some days. 

The nurse, the same one as before, gives him the same crooked smile and grips his shoulder tight. 

“We let our patients have half an hour outside every day, if they wish. Your grandmother doesn’t want to go out.”

Niall’s tears fall when he reaches the car and he sobs like a seven-year-old while holding on to the steering wheel, feeling lost and his eyes stinging, stinging. His own name rings in his head, the name his grandmother can’t remember in any world but that of his dreams, not anymore. 

He spends the night in her house, alone, without her, her cat gone since long, without anything that even reminds him of her anymore. The winds are strong, the rain is cold and the house creaks like it has always done during bad weather. It feels more like a haunted house, than the house he used to love with all his heart, saw as a home. He has never enjoyed drinking on his own, but that night he does. He drinks until the black clouds above, surround him and they remind him of birds. 

-

“You’re drunk, Ni”, Zayn says later, much, _much_ later. Days later, weeks. 

He doesn’t listen, his head is too tired to listen to anything anymore, and he only holds on to the boy he loves, _with his whole heart,_ and dances to the euphoric music, grinds up close, eyes barely seeing, just listening and feeling. There’s the beat, their breathing, the stubble against Niall’s cheek, rough, his own lips against jaw, the reflection of light in Zayn’s glasses, the grinding of their bodies. Zayn’s hands hold on to his hips and Niall clings to his neck, wondering if this is love and if this is happiness, here, at their highest peak, intoxicated and _feeling._ Is it even worth it? 

He rests lips against Zayn’s shoulder, looks over it and into blinding blue light, blinks, and then he sees Liam, dancing with the carefree and kind Danielle. He might be drunk as a fucking skunk, but he still thinks he catches Liam’s eyes, _questions,_ and he quickly looks away again. His heart beats with _NiallNiallNiall_ and his grandmother’s voice hasn’t left him alone since he came back. His dream is nothing but a white, blank page now. It’s nothing. There’s no black birds, no woods, only a white, crystal-clear light. Like the end is coming soon. 

“We should go and do some wall-fucking”, he mumbles into Zayn’s ear, lips like some kind of dangerous and deceiving feathers over his boyfriend’s pulse point. “Right now.”

Zayn frowns, but Niall doesn’t notice, and pulls him by his hand to the men’s room and disappears inside, locks, and pushes Zayn against the door. Teeth bite, deeply, into sensitive lips and fingers pull hair, gripping and bringing closer, the music still being heard and drowning everything out, all that is bad. He chuckles into Zayn’s mouth, pulls his head to the side and sucks the glowing skin on his neck, a clever hand reaching down to cup his growing erection, but –

“Wait, Niall, wait”, Zayn says and grips his shoulders, pushes him away. “You’re wasted. You’ve had too much. We should head home.”

Alone. Right. Niall stares with big blue eyes, pupils blown to hell, and he bites his own lip, thinking, feeling, and then he narrows his eyes. He slaps Zayn’s hands away from him, shoves him so his back hits the wall harshly behind him, and the older boy curses loudly, tries to reach out and catch him again nevertheless, but Niall hurries into a cubicle and locks the door. 

“Fuck, Niall!” he shouts and bangs on the cubicle door. “Get out of there.”

“No”, he mutters, because it’s the only word that makes any sense right now, it’s the answer to all the questions, no. But Zayn doesn’t seem to hear, only bangs on the door harder, kicks it. 

“Fuckin’ get out of there, Niall!” he yells. “I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you, but get out here so we can talk.”

The blonde, Irish kid sits down on the toilet seat, stares at the shaking door in front of him and hears the beat and the music and nothing else. No shouting, no names, no wind or birds, no rain. Nothing but the music. Everything else is dull, like your hearing can go as blurry as your vision. 

“Niall!” 

Zayn kicks and he kicks and he kicks and Niall doesn’t know why he even bothers. This isn’t happiness, is it? Doesn’t Zayn deserve that? Zayn with all the answers. 

His head is a white light, a blank page, a new beginning. Emptiness and nothingness smashed together. He must be sleeping, he must be, but then he blinks and he wonders how Zayn got so tall, like a giant. How. Why is his hair brown instead of black. Why. 

He thinks he hears his name, muffled, but he ignores it and sees white light instead and pressure against his chest and warmth, strong arms, soft skin, shaking, eyes of brown seas. No. 

-

Niall knows better than anyone when he has fucked up, because he _never_ fucks up. He’s the good boy, the polite one who his grandmother raised like her own, loved and cherished. He knows as soon as he wakes up, tubes in his arms and a raw feeling in his throat. He knows it as soon as he sees Zayn slumped down on a chair, sleeping, and wearing the same set of clothes as he did the last time Niall saw him. He blinks, the light unforgiving in his eyes, and he tries to speak and wake Zayn up, tries to be _sorry._

“Your stomach was pumped.”

At first, Niall frowns and thinks it’s his own voice because he’s mouthing away in thin air but apparently no words come out and the voice doesn’t belong to him. It belongs to Liam, who’s sitting on the other side of the bed and he is also wearing the same set of clothes as earlier. Niall swallows. 

“He’s been going crazy”, Liam says and nods at Zayn. “I gave him sleeping pills to calm him down. Harry and Louis will be here soon too.”

His teeth are clenched and his big, brown eyes stare straight into his fucking soul like he’s trying to find every answer he has ever wanted to every question he hasn’t gotten to ask Niall. This is not how things are supposed to be. Things have changed, time has gone by. No. 

“What the fuck is going on, Niall?” Liam hisses out and a hot, heavy tear rolls down the younger boy’s cheek. 

He shakes his head, can’t speak. Liam doesn’t care. 

“What the hell has happened to you?” 

Another tear and quiet sobbing, fingers gripping tightly to sheets to prevent his chest from blowing up. He should answer, he really should, but he can’t and he won’t. Not answering anything will change a lot and Niall will have to carry that with him. Things are just not supposed to be this way and if he doesn’t say anything, then they’ll change, they will. They have to. 

“I expected better from you”, Liam continues, eyes dark and his mind must be going insane with the never-existing answers. 

He buries his head in his hands, pushing fingers up through his hair and finally rests his head on the edge of Niall’s bed. He stays there, silence filling him and then he takes a deep breath and looks up. 

“He’s my best mate, you know”, he says and points at the sleeping Zayn, Niall glances quickly. “I know it doesn’t seem like we’re so close anymore, but still. Fuck. He’s still my best mate and I love him. I won’t let you fuck him up like this. _He deserves better_.”

No, _she_ , she deserves better. 

Niall frowns through his tears and Liam scoffs, very angry, yes. He gives Niall another dark look and he shakes his head slowly. 

“He’s been losing his mind, always worrying about you”, Liam explains, voice low, familiar. “You didn’t know? Did you honestly expect him not to wonder about the nightmares? And this? You’ve been fucked up ever since you came back from your trip.” 

He holds his neck, looks up at the ceiling with suddenly teary eyes and groans loudly like he’s trying to punish God for things being like this. He swings side to side on his chair, thinking, and Niall can do nothing but silently observe him. When he looks back down at Niall, he wipes his eyes clumsily and stands up, abruptly, in need to leave. 

Niall feels a hollow pit in his stomach and knows that things are changing, not for the better. Sometimes you miscalculate. 

“I love you too, you know”, he says, mumbles, and Niall wishes Liam would one day learn how to _not speak._ “I always have.”

Niall closes his eyes so he won’t have to see when Liam bends down and places his lips upon Niall’s chapped ones, closing over them and tongue shooting out slick, wet, between Niall’s lips and then it’s gone. Liam’s lips are gone and Liam is also gone when Niall opens his eyes again. Lou and Harry arrive though, eyes big as well, and Niall pretends to sleep. 

-

They say silence is golden. Or at least it’s supposed to be. 

His phone isn’t easy to keep silent, the multiple phone calls and texts and questions of _what, how, are you –, is something_ is making Niall insane and he wishes he knew how to shut it all off. His parents call and he doesn’t answer, but then they call Zayn (because all of a sudden they _know_ and Niall wonders if Zayn’s been talking to them behind his back the whole time) and he only, silently, hands the phone over to him. His mum yells, his dad says _it’s okay,_ and Niall tells them that his grandmother is sick and he can’t help and they both say _I know._ They’ve known for a while now, known that his grandma is a lost cause. 

Zayn holds him close while Niall cries his fucking eyes out, messily, ugly. When Niall wakes up from his dreams, unable to breathe because of the nothingness absorbing him, Zayn takes the habit of pretty much lying on top of him, _warmth_ and _calm_ pressing down on him. Niall finds his breath, but his dreams won’t go away. 

Suddenly everyone knows about him and forces questions in his face at every possible minute. He doesn’t answer, leaves his friends empty-handed with nothing but their own lies to form of him. Niall wonders if Liam sometimes listens to them, to the lies, in hope for some truths and possible answers Niall won’t give him. 

He spends every second of every day in Zayn and Liam’s flat, avoids his and Harry’s and the way his name echoes coldly against the walls in it, the way it screams _alone._ The boys decide to _leave it alone,_ (maybe Zayn has said something, Niall doesn’t know) and Zayn goes back to teaching classes, leaves the flat on early mornings and comes back on late afternoons and when Zayn gets back, he joins Niall on the couch, in the bed, or by the kitchen table, always close and comforting, always mumbling sweet nothings of lifetimes or whatever into his ear. It makes Niall feel better, but it’s not enough. The fact makes his heart break, piece by piece, and he knows he’s bringing Zayn with him in his perfect fall. Zayn, who is worth everything that is better than Niall. Zayn, who is too good to be true. 

Eventually, he is forced out to dinner with the boys and a few other friends, Josh, and he is met by eyes in all imaginable colours but all with one thing in common: wonder. Their eyes silently scream at him to tell them what is going on, but Niall has been trying for months to forget – did forget – and he wants it to be that way again. He hates change even if it sometimes is for the better. This isn’t for the better. 

It takes sitting down by the table, next to Zayn and, surprisingly, with Liam on his other side, (if the circumstances were normal, then it wouldn’t have been very surprising at all, but considering how angry Liam has been at him, eyes piercing and hurting) for him to finally look Liam in the face. The brown eyes, slightly golden around the edges, take his breath away because, for once, for once during all this time, they lack any questions at all. His eyes are soft and silently understanding, it makes Niall’s head spin. 

Liam doesn’t smile at him like he’d normally do, doesn’t speak, and Niall subconsciously leans closer to Zayn on the other side, feels an arm absently rest on the back of his chair, and Zayn’s warmth radiating. He always wanted Liam’s eyes to change from _questions_ to _answers,_ but somehow, now that it has happened, it feels worse than the questions ever did. 

During the rest of the night, he avoids Liam’s eyes and only has eyes for his friends and Zayn and tries not to wonder if the expression on Liam’s face is the one the kind and carefree Danielle always gets to see. Somehow he both envies and pities her at the same time. 

-

All of a sudden, Niall makes the rash decision to sleep on the couch instead of in Zayn’s bed. _(Maybe if I tried –, maybe if I did –, maybe, maybe maybe)._ Zayn doesn’t seem to like the idea very much, but doesn’t question Niall. 

“I’ll keep my door open”, Zayn says, instead, with a wink and Niall kisses him like he’s afraid he’ll disappear into thin air, somehow, and –, “I love you.”

Niall leans his forehead against Zayn’s, sighs softly and nods, eyes closed and just feeling. 

“I love you too.”

The night starts out with no sleep at all, only darkness surrounding him with evil shadows. Positive thing is that it’s a change from the empty, white space he dreams of. But then, after hours of writhing, he falls into deep sleep. Like always, there’s the road, the lime green trees, his seven-year-old self running with the Mickey Mouse bag pressed tightly to his chest, breathing, then they stop, stare, his grandmother shouts his name, they turn their heads, black birds, running, his kid-self is gone and then everything is gone and everything is _blankblankblank_ with nothing to fill it and Niall looks down at his hands and sees them slowly disappear. 

He sits up in the sofa, sweat running down his back and legs tingling like he’s been running for miles, and he quickly climbs out of it. He quickly heads for Zayn’s door, sees a small crack of it open but darkness inside, and he hesitates, swallows and glances at the door next to it, the one to Liam’s. 

Change, right. Sometimes you just happen to miscalculate it, right. 

Niall breathes heavily, on the verge of hyperventilating with tiny, sharp breaths, and he chooses the door closest. He knocks, lightly, as if he’s hoping no one will answer it. Time ticks by, he can feel every second of it in his heart, and then the door opens into a small crack, light bursting out, and Liam sticks his head out in the murky hall, eyes narrowed and tired. 

“Ni?” he asks, voice hoarse, and opens the door wider, hears Niall’s breathing. 

“Can I come in?” the blonde asks in between breaths, strangely, awkwardly. 

Liam frowns, but steps aside and Niall quickly slips inside into soft, golden light. The door closes behind him silently and Niall hurries over to Liam’s bed before he can form any questions (he didn’t even think of the possibility that Danielle might’ve been there in the bed, but then again, obviously, she isn’t), crawls into the warmth and lies down, breathes out. 

There are moments before he can hear Liam’s feet trail the floor on the way to the empty side of the bed and he thankfully doesn’t say anything at all. The bed dips as Liam gets in under the covers and lies back down to get to sleep. Niall waits, tries to fall asleep with his back turned against Liam (like he always does), but the silence and the force of it seems to penetrate his skin and make him restless. He can’t even hear the sound of Liam’s breathing. 

He fills his lungs with air, shaky, and slowly turns around and shuffles closer, closer, until he feels warm flesh under his cold palm and muscles flex to the difference. He doesn’t breathe out until he hears Liam’s own breathing get normal once again. Accidentally, his lips brushes Liam’s shoulder and the older boy quickly turns, Niall’s hand slipping from his stomach to the mattress, but then their foreheads are suddenly glued together and Liam’s hand grips his waist. Niall keeps his eyes cast low, doesn’t want to look up into big, brown eyes, but does it anyway, in the end, can’t resist, and finds no stupid questions there. 

He swallows, wants to scoot even closer, but Liam breaks the silence and mumbles, “Go to sleep.”

It’s a direct order, Niall’s eyes grow big, but then they quickly close and he realizes how tired he is and he falls asleep, dreaming, dreaming of brown seas. 

-  
“Why aren’t you and Zayn as close anymore?” Niall mutters, thickly. “I mean, you two were like brothers. Inseparable. It was the two of you against the world.”

(They’ve overslept or, rather, Liam has overslept. Niall’s been free from work for days, he has no missed calls. Liam’s supposed to have been at work an hour ago, his phone keeps on ringing. Zayn’s been gone for hours.) 

“I think you know why.”

Sometimes, a lot of times, Liam makes him confused. Zayn never makes him confused, but is always straight to the point with everything. Uncomplicated, easy. So fucking easy it feels like Niall is cheating in every competition possible, if only for his relationship with Zayn. 

Niall chews toast silently, legs pulled up to his chest with shins resting against the edge of the table and arms hugging them close. He stirs his tea, pours more cream in it, and adds another sugar. Liam stabs into his egg, sunny side up, like he wants to murder. 

“But you’re with Danielle”, Niall says, after he swallows, and stares at the vortex his spoon creates in his cup. 

“Yeah”, Liam says, shrugs in the corner of Niall’s eye. 

“You _love_ Danielle”, the younger boy insists, confused and looks up. 

Liam gives one, lonely and curt nod, lips pressed together. 

“Does Zayn know?” Niall mumbles, when he really wants to ask something else, wants to dig deeper, wants to make things clear. (But if you can prevent change, then that’s a good thing, right?) Things are always left unspoken between them, no questions ever asked or answered. 

“Zayn knows a lot of things”, Liam answers and doesn’t need to tell Niall more than that, because Niall knows that Zayn is omniscient, full of mysterious power. He wonders if Zayn has been giving Liam answers behind Niall’s back, if they talk a lot about _things._ Niall doesn’t ask. 

He sips his tea, finds it acceptable and dips some of his toast in it. He eats it, listens as Liam’s phone rings once again, vibrating angrily, and watches as the older boy stares at his plate like he doesn’t hear it at all. 

“I’m sorry for getting in between you”, Niall says, pushes the words out of his mouth and it feels like he’s going to choke while doing so. 

“Don’t be”, Liam says, reassures, and forces a smile onto his lips. 

None of it convinces Niall very much, so he reaches a hand out and puts it on top of Liam’s, tries to transfer some warmth (which he sadly, in reality, lacks) and any comfort. He’s new at this and he doesn’t know how to act the right way, usually he’s the one receiving the warmth. Liam twines their fingers, locks them tightly, and looks down at them like it’s a sight too hard to comprehend. He eases the grip a little, pulls his fingers out and then immediately lets them sink back in, as if he’s experimenting, checking a theory, or simply enjoying their first time of holding hands. He looks up, suddenly, and leans in, and Niall knows what’s coming and closes his eyes quickly (it’s not _wrong_ if he can’t see it) but what he expects to come, doesn’t, but he still keeps his eyes closed, just in case. 

“Niall?” Liam breathes, air hitting the blonde’s face, warm. “Niall, can you please look at me?” 

He swallows and slowly does as he’s told, hesitatingly, and opens his eyes to stare into soft, brown seas. Niall wonders when he stopped being the one to make decisions, when _he_ became the pawn of the game. 

Liam leans in, Niall’s head is like a rocky boat and his stomach sucks all air in to a ball threatening to explode, and then, then Liam’s lips land on his and it’s not until then Liam closes his own eyes and Niall is allowed to close his. Liam doesn’t kiss like Zayn does – Liam kisses like it’ll soon end, quick and eager, like he has to taste all in one kiss, Zayn has always been slow, cherishing every moment. Niall thinks that maybe, maybe Liam kisses this way because he knows it might actually be the only time he gets to do it. 

Niall kisses him back, breaths in deeply through his nose to get much needed oxygen, and tries to respond as good as possible to Liam’s wet tongue, pulsing in, wanting. He relaxes a bit, lets his legs sink down and feet land on the floor, leans closer to Liam and lets their knees (which he tried to avoid earlier) finally brush against each other. Liam brings his free hand up to Niall’s cheek, steadies and holds on, tongue scraping over teeth. Eager, eager. Niall moans despite himself, his hand moving, curiously, and reaches over to Liam’s thigh and – 

Liam’s phone vibrates again and he stops all movements, pulls away, recoils back and carefully untwines his fingers with Liam’s and pushes the hand on his cheek away. Fuck. He doesn’t want to look Liam in the eyes, because he knows that look which he loathes so much will be staring back at him. _Why, explain to me, why._

Niall scratches the back of his neck, gulps down his cold tea and gets up from his chair. “You should answer your phone. Go to work.”

_Call your girlfriend._

He leaves like a coward, he knows. It’s not perfect, mostly because it can’t be, and the changes happening is nothing like he wants them to be. Liam’s eyes are like daggers in his back as he goes, but not stopping him, not at all, until – “So, what? He’s the only one allowed to be worried about you?” 

The Irish boy stops, shoulders slumped, and he glances back at the boy by the kitchen table. He knows that’s not really what Liam is asking him, can tell by the way his lips still ache from his bruising kiss. It’s not at all what Liam wants to ask. _Is Zayn the only one allowed to love you?_

Niall finds the answer simple, he thinks Liam should know by now, and he says, “Zayn isn’t worried about me.” 

Liam laughs loudly, the tones sharp against the walls and Niall’s skin, cold, unforgettable. He shakes his head, patronizing smile on his lips. After all, as Liam has said, Zayn’s his best mate and Liam won’t let Niall fuck him up. After all, after this, after _everything_ that still means as much. 

“You still don’t get it, do you? He worries about you the _most_.” 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Niall knows he’d regret the day he climbed into Zayn and Liam’s bed and pulled the best friends apart. Still, he never thought this would happen, he never thought everything would turn up so wrong. 

-

Niall has completely forgotten about Gemma Styles’ wedding, the day Harry whispers, “You’ll be there, right?” in his ear and stares at him with green and hopeful eyes. 

Zayn is quickly by his side, an arm around his shoulders, and says, “’Course we’ll be at Gemma’s wedding.” 

Niall’s blue eyes widen slightly in realization then, fingers squeezing Zayn’s hip in a silent _thank you,_ and he nods. 

“Of course, Haz. _Of course,_ I’ll be there”, he promises. There should be no question about it, but lately everything is questions when it comes to Niall. Has always been, perhaps. 

His mum calls him daily now, sends texts, always in the need of checking up on him. He tells her to relax, that he hasn’t been drinking since he came home from the hospital. He even hands Zayn the phone so he can confirm that it’s true. 

“You wouldn’t want people to think you’ve got an alcohol problem”, his mother says, always worrying about the wrong thing, and he hangs up the phone after the final, “Maybe you should see your old therapist again.”

Niall remembers being asked months back to photograph Harry’s sister’s wedding, knows Gemma even called him and asked personally. Now though, thanks to Niall and his latest craziness, someone else will take the pictures. He panics and thinks maybe no one wants him there, that everyone might be worrying he’ll empty the whole bar and ruin the wedding, but Zayn is fast to reassure him otherwise _(no, no one thinks that, all they want is for you to be there, it’s okay, love)_ and Niall believes him, he does. 

Sometimes, a lot lately because Liam’s always spending the nights at Danielle’s, Zayn talks to Liam on the phone and Niall understands that Liam always promises to come by, hang out, but he never shows up and it makes Niall’s heart sink like a stone every time. 

Niall doesn’t see Liam until the wedding, in the church sitting next to his girlfriend with arm around her small shoulders, and Niall and Zayn are running a bit late thanks to their christening of the limo outside _(let’s have sex in the limo, like those kids on that TV show)_ and the only seats free, have been saved for them, are those next to Liam and Danielle. They sit down, creating their normal sandwich with Niall in between Zayn and Liam, and flashbacks of nights in the empty cinemas come back to haunt him. Zayn leans over Niall and whispers something into Liam’s ear, they both laugh quietly, and Niall wonders if their time spent _somewhere else, outside of their shared apartment_ without him have made them better, closer. 

Danielle informs them of how beautiful Gemma looked when she snuck a peek earlier and Niall smiles, leans into Zayn, and feels him take his hand, soothingly. Niall’s thigh pushes against Liam’s, accidentally. 

A few rows in front of them, Lou turns around, shouts and waves and laughs at them, Zayn waves back, laughs, but Niall narrows his eyes and spots Harry next to Louis as well as Eleanor on Louis’s other side. Sometimes Niall is too caught up in his own shit to notice the shit going on with Lou and Haz, and how Lou apparently can love two people at once (as well). Niall wonders how it’s like to be Harry Styles and not be the ham or the cheese of the sandwich, but only simple bread, lonely and cold on one side, nothing to fully envelop him. Sometimes Niall hates himself and sometimes he hates Louis just as much. Sometimes he forgets and doesn’t care. 

The church silences as the music starts and everyone turn around to watch as the bride walks in, smiling, already in tears, and looking like the most beautiful bride Niall has ever seen. He squeezes Zayn’s hand tightly, smiles softly, and wonders how it’s like to be as happy as Gemma is right now. True happiness. He also wonders if he’ll one day watch Danielle walk down this aisle, flowers in her hair, walking perfectly like the dancer she is, light on her feet, smiling widely baring teeth, kind and carefree, and about to marry Liam.   
Suddenly, his smile falters and he feels nauseous, nails digging into the skin of Zayn’s hand, cold sweat pouring out his pores, and _blankblankblank._

He swallows, leans up to Zayn’s ear and whispers, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Zayn nods, understands, and releases his hand and points to where the toilets are. Niall gets up, quietly, hurries by Liam and Danielle and disappears into the dark corridor to the right and finds the bathrooms. He leans over the sinks, breathing heavily and splashes water in his face, trying to calm himself down. He needs to get his shit together, _now,_ he’s tired of this and tired of ruining things for everyone. If he doesn’t sort things out, then he’ll end up right where he started – alone, lost and confused. (Even though it feels like he’s already there, like he never even left the start in the first place in his search for finish.) 

“Jesus, Ni”, he suddenly hears behind him and he looks up, stares into the mirror at the reflection of the boy behind him, Liam. “Looks like you haven’t slept for days.”

Niall shakes his head, doesn’t want to deal with his own shit with Liam here, and goes to leave, but Liam shoots his hand out, grasps his wrist and stops him. He wants to shove Liam, just like he shoved Zayn a few weeks ago, but he doesn’t. 

“Just leave it, please”, Niall begs, whimpers. When did Liam get this daring anyway? When did he start to _know_ things and when did he decide to steal things that aren’t his, not really? 

“Niall”, Liam says softly, fingers caressing his wrist and not hurting. Tenderly, carefully, lightly. 

The blonde shakes his head, no, teeth clenched as he forces out, “This isn’t my fault. I didn’t ask for this when I – when I –”

“Ni”, Liam continues, whispers, barely listening, only pulling Niall closer until chest is pressed against chest. 

Niall wants to say _no_ and _go back to your girlfriend and I’ll go back to my boyfriend_ and _I didn’t choose you_ and _I didn’t come to you during that first night_ and _it’s always been Zayn and it’ll always be Zayn._ AlwaysalwaysalwaysalwaysALWAYS. 

But. Sometimes you miscalculate change. 

It’s not even Liam who leans in the last bit, but Niall, who’s tired, so very tired, and grabs on to Liam’s shoulders, pulls him closer and lets hands slide up to his strong neck, unfamiliar in his hands, and pulls him down, fingers dipping into soft hair by the neck, and then his lips touch Liam’s, only a brush. He sighs and presses his nose against Liam’s cheek, they both breathe, hearts beating in their ears, blood pumping, and then Liam reaches down, grips his thighs and lifts him up, strong, very strong. 

Niall wraps his legs tightly around Liam’s waist, lips immediately on Liam’s and tongue delving into his mouth. Liam stumbles over to the sinks, puts Niall down and presses fingers into hipbones, pushing, biting lips and then kissing a long trail over cheek, cheekbones, jaw to neck and throat and shoulder, bites into it through the shirt. No marks left. They pull at ties, strangling and then loosening, drag jackets over shoulders and pull shirts from pants. Niall moans and hooks his heels into the soft curves of Liam’s bum, gets him closer and their cocks brush through pants. Niall wonders if Liam has ever done this before, doubts it (knows it’s _always_ been Danielle for Liam) and stills shortly to trace fingers over Liam’s jaw, inspecting the skin free of stubble. 

“It’s easier if I bend over”, Niall mumbles, breath hitching at the last word, gets stuck in there with the realization of what they’re about to do. 

The older boy nods, the movement making their temples brush and he moves back a little so Niall has enough space to jump down. They’re both hesitating, they can _feel_ it, chests barely brushing again, breathing, their heads bowed and foreheads teasingly touching. Then, Niall leans up and gives a quick peck on Liam’s cheek before turning around, unbuckling his belt and pulling his slacks and boxers down. Behind him, Liam gasps, probably a bit shocked by how unashamed the other boy is, doesn’t care. Before Zayn, Niall would’ve cared, but now his innocence has since long been compromised and tainted. He places his palms, flat down, on the sink in front of him and bends his upper body down and the lower as much up as possible. 

“You’ll have to, uh – You’ll have to open me up a bit”, Niall continues, head screaming, cock aching, and not daring to look back. 

Nothing happens for long and maybe Liam has left, he almost hopes, but then he feels a hand by his hip, sliding up and pushing the shirt out of the way to expose his ass more and even his lower back. Liam’s fingers trace skin on the left side of Niall’s lower back, and he flinches, his whole body jerks, because he knows where he’s touching, where he’s looking. 

“No”, Niall says, stutters, and turns around, pries Liam’s hand away from him. _That_ belongs to Zayn and Zayn only. 

Brown eyes get bigger, snaps back into reality like he just now realizes what he’s doing, and he shakes his head and opens his mouth as if he’s about to say sorry, but then he says, “You love him so fucking much, don’t you?” 

Niall pulls his underwear and trousers back up, shakily with fingers fumbling, feeling ashamed like some dirty whore, exposed, and tries to clear his mess of a head. Liam’s tone is wretched and his face is a frown, eyes unfocused and as lost as Niall has never seen them before. Niall sighs and pushes a hand into his hair. 

“I love you, Ni. _So fucking much_ ”, Liam says, sounds sure of this fact while Niall doubts it. “And I can’t do this. It’s not fair.” 

Niall stops breathing, stops listening and can only faintly feel the pressure of Liam’s lips on his forehead, lingering, regretting, before he tidies himself up and leaves him on his own in the bathroom stalls. He wants to scream, because _none_ of this is any fair. Life isn’t fair for any of them. They can only get the things they never ask for, can never get the things they truly want. His eyes sting and they continue to sting later, when he also has tidied himself up and joined the others in the church, next to Zayn, burying his nose in Zayn’s shirt, crying, and pretending it’s because of how _happy_ he is. 

Later, at the reception when they’re dancing close, so close it burns, Niall mouths wordless apologies into olive skin of smoke, and holds on tightly. 

-

When he finally gets back to work (he’s the assistant of Louis’ uncle, the owner of an art gallery), it turns out to be a ‘WELCOME BACK’ party with the boys there as well as his co-workers and his boss. He immediately notices, after been handed a box of China food, that a lot of changes have happened during his few weeks he’s been hiding in Zayn and Liam’s apartment. 

At first, he notices that Louis and Harry aren’t joking around, smiling, laughing, touching like they used to do. In fact, they barely speak to each other at all except for when Louis’s uncle walks by and tells them some bad joke. Zayn whispers something into his ear about _don’t ask,_ but Niall wants to ask, needs to ask and find out what has happened because he cares and Zayn whispers then, “Eleanor”, and Niall gets it. 

Selfishly he wonders, to himself, if the same thing between Harry and Lou will happen between him and Liam, or Zayn. He doesn’t like the thought and locks it away somewhere in his brain where he already keeps bags, _Niall, blankblankblank_ and black birds locked in. 

The second thing he notices is that Zayn and Liam seem to have bonded and found their way back to their old friendship (when, Niall doesn’t know as Liam’s never much home). He sees it in how they laugh loudly together, tapping their backs and pointing at strange art of grey giraffes hanging around the gallery. They steal food from each other and then throw it at each other and laugh loudly until Louis tells them off. Then, they start to throw food at Louis instead and he chases them around, shouting, until Liam’s phone rings and he disappears into an empty room. At that, Zayn hurries over to his boyfriend, sits down close and steals a few small spring rolls and pops them into his mouth, chews nastily, loudly, and grins. He swallows, leans in, and his nose brushes the shell of Niall’s ear. 

“I’m going out to get some fresh air, want to come with?” he wonders and Niall nods, despite knowing _getting some fresh air_ means getting his lungs filled with poisonous smoke. 

They get out on a balcony and are met by a cold breeze, but they still sit down on the ground hips to feet aligned with each other’s, back against the wall, very close so they can keep warm. Zayn pulls out his pack of cigarettes, lights one, leans his head back against the wall and blows smoke out in the air. Niall hangs his head low, plays with his fingers in his lap, twists and turns, and only stops to pull his jacket tighter around him when another cold breeze comes by. Autumn is here and is close to passing. 

Zayn lets his free hand rest on Niall’s thigh, impossible heat spreading, and he sighs smoke out through his nose and stares up at the grey sky above. Sometimes Niall wonders how Zayn can take being all-knowing, how he can handle it, how his mind can comprehend it and how his soul dares to possess it. 

He takes another drag, mesmerizingly slow, pushes his glasses up his nose, and he mumbles, “Maybe we should move in together. I mean, you’re practically living with me anyway.”

Niall thinks it’s selfish to say that his boyfriend is ripping his heart out, coldly, because in some ways he’s doing the same. Difference is that Niall is aware of it and hates himself for doing so. 

He pulls his legs up, hugs them close, and Zayn’s hand slips away almost like a lost leave in the wind. Burying his face in his knees, he sighs as his vision goes darker, bites his lips roughly enough to make them red and swollen _(son, I think you should know –)_ and nods, glances to the side. 

“My grandmother is sick, you know”, he says and doesn’t even have to look at Zayn’s face to see, feel, his frown – his silent _yes, I know_ – and Niall shakes his head, has to explain more, has to tell him about change. “I mean, sicker. It’s her heart.”

He says it like it’s an answer, as if this is his decision on _their_ future. Zayn nods, blows smoke out his nose and the wind rustles his hair, messes it into an imperfection so pure it’s almost perfection. Niall brushes fingers over his own lips, traces chapped skin, broken and split from his biting – mostly from during the nights, when he dreams and sometimes cries – and Zayn looks down at him, stares, the wind rough in their ears, and his almost black eyes seem like they’re trying to tell him something, anything. 

Sometimes, during these times when Niall realizes Zayn’s just as much a stranger as the person Niall knows the best, is the closest to, loves, these times he finds Zayn puzzling, unable to read completely. He’s not as much an open book like Liam is, or used to be at least. The realization makes Niall tremble and want to reach out and grip Zayn tight, with every intention of not letting him go. Ever. 

Niall sighs again – more lets out the breath he never realized he was holding in – and nods another time, eyes dark, so very dark, staring into his soul and branding him as he silently agrees to his boyfriend’s wishes. 

-

“You’re moving in?” 

Such a question can easily be turned into a statement, but Niall knows that Liam doesn’t want it to be a statement, wants it to be a question, pressuring and heavy, so Niall can deny it. 

Keeping his eyes on the telly, neck resting against the soft cushion of the armchair’s backrest, he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t answer, thinks maybe it’s better that way. On the screen in front of him, Will from _The Inbetweeners_ is shitting himself in school, during a test, and normally Liam and Niall would double over and laugh their asses off, but now they don’t. Now, Niall stares at the screen with tired eyes and tries to understand what the fun in it is, while Liam stares at him from his place on the sofa next to him. 

“You are”, Liam continues, answers his own question and destroys the silence Niall tries to create, wants to hang on to. 

Niall has a few questions of his own, actually, like whether Liam has asked Danielle to marry him, if _they’re_ the ones moving in together and if Zayn has told Liam about his grandmother and her aching heart, if he knows, if he cares. Fuck. He doesn’t ask.   
Sometimes, since his father called and told him of his grandmother’s poor heart, Niall hears a heartbeat in his ears, steady, just like he remembers _hers_ from that particular Christmas when she gave him his first camera, when he hugged her tight. It beats with the sound of her voice, empty but never-ending, not real. 

“Does it matter?” Niall finally says. “You’re never here anyway.”

Niall looks at Liam, meets his eyes and knows he’s misunderstanding Liam’s question. He does it on purpose because Liam’s got Danielle, loves her just like Niall loves Zayn and Liam doesn’t get to look at him like that, as if he’s breaking some kind of promise, isn’t allowed to. Liam’s got Danielle and he’s supposed to be with her. That’s the end of the story. 

Still, Liam says, “Ni, you don’t understand – “ and Niall chooses to block the rest out. 

He recalls the night before, when he finally came home to his and Harry’s apartment and found Harry in the kitchen, on a chair, and staring out into nothingness without saying anything at all. Niall tried to speak to him, shake him and hug him but then Harry suddenly shoved him away, glaring hard until tears where showing and he spat, “You’re no better. Just what the fuck are you doing, Niall?”

And it’s true, he isn’t better, but he can be if he tries hard enough. If he’s got enough strength to try, and he is fighting, he is. 

Liam looks away from him, jaw set tight and Niall tries to ignore it. He tries.


	3. Chapter 3

Superman’s got his kryptonite, even Jesus died. Zayn can handle a lot, but then again, he can’t. It’s weeks after Niall’s birthday and they’ve waited patiently to celebrate it – now, huge festivities are in order and they all get royally drunk, Zayn getting the worst. Niall wonders how he can be so stupid, how he can believe Zayn to be indestructible. He thinks he’s stupid and unfair to have thought so much of Zayn, demanded, when in reality he’s only human, like the rest of them, with feelings like everyone else. 

Things are falling apart, Niall can feel it, and Zayn’s breaking just like everyone else is. 

Louis throws the party, lends some space in one of his dad’s many hotels and people are cheering around them, congratulating Niall on his belated birthday and Niall would laugh and shout happily with them if it wasn’t for things being so _wrong._

He keeps himself next to Harry’s side, close, because in the end he wishes to be more like Harry, thinks he’s more like him than he’ll ever be like Louis. Harry drinks directly from a champagne bottle, cradles it in his arms, and has his eyes boring into his phone, much like Liam did months ago. He doesn’t say anything to Niall, doesn’t share his shit, and even though Harry doesn’t tell him _why,_ Niall still gets it. 

The five of them, together, make a few poor attempts at being happy when they pose for pictures Niall takes or makes others take, for memories. When they’re done, Harry storms off, head in his phone, and Louis calls his name and quickly follows him to where they can’t be seen, to where they can argue in peace. Niall keeps to himself, escapes to a room in which he thinks he won’t be found, wants to be alone for once, and enjoy the force of suffocating silence. 

He winds up in an empty dining area, after walking through room after room, taking the elevator higher and higher up, and there’s a fountain in there, some kind of whishing mill, right by the huge floor to roof windows, which gives an amazing view of the city. Niall sits down on the edge of the fountain, one of those with an evil-looking angel spitting water through its mouth, and leans his head against one of the windows, gaze drooping down at the coins lying on the bottom of the fountain. He stares at them, shimmering temptingly for those greedy, but Niall isn’t greedy, not really, and he doesn’t find the appeal in them. 

He knows wishes are for kids, seven-year-olds. So, instead, he stares out at the city through the windows, tries to imagine how it would be like to be a black bird, flying, and watching the lights dance like an ocean of fire underneath him, free. Carefree. Birds can be greedy, they can if they want something, but they’re also willing to share to those they care for, they’re willing to give away, let things be. Niall would snap a few pictures if Josh hadn’t disappeared with his camera. 

“I heard you were here.”

Niall glances to the side, eyes catching Zayn on the other side of the fountain, bowtie hanging undone around his neck, white shirt pulled from his pants and the top buttons unbuttoned, hair a slight mess. He nods, doesn’t say anything and stares back out at the city and the golden streetlights, head so tired that it feels like he’s living a dream right now. 

Noise pulls his attention back to Zayn, water splashing, and he looks to the side again, finding his boyfriend in the water, walking towards Niall with slow and steady steps, breaking the surface and creating the tiniest of waves and smirking when he sees Niall’s big, blue eyes. He sits down on the edge, next to Niall, feet still in the water and his slacks dripping, and he chuckles, making the noise echo in the room. 

“I think congratulations are in order”, Zayn says, a bit drunk with his feet dangling, and Niall manages a small smile, reaches out and grabs Zayn’s hand to keep in his lap with his own and lets his lover pull his ankles until Niall’s feet is in his lap. 

“I wish there were things to celebrate”, Niall mumbles, eyes following Zayn’s every movement as he pulls his package of cigarettes out, like an expert with only one hand (used to it due to Niall always clinging onto a hand of his) and lights one. 

Yeah, he’s wasted. Niall doesn’t tell him off though, thinks Louis will handle the payment for the potential fines of smoking inside the building. 

Sober Zayn would’ve told him that there _are_ things worth celebrating – love and happiness. Wasted Zayn is a bit more honest than that – he doesn’t say anything. 

Their thumbs wrestle in Niall’s lap, sometimes rough enough to hurt and sometimes tender enough to send sparks through Niall’s whole body, and he wishes this was another time and day as their lips meet in a tender kiss of mixed emotions _(I miss you, love me more, never leave, I’ll always be here)_ and it aches enough to make Niall’s eyes sting, smoke in his eyes, in both of their lungs. 

A strange movement intrudes on Niall’s vision, someone else is in the room with them, and he breaks the kiss for all the right reasons – it might be staff about to tell them off, or hotel guests coming for some peace and quiet, or some of their friends playing around. Niall’s reasons are made wrong when he sees it’s Liam, of all people Niall would’ve wished to interrupt them, who stands by the edge of the other side of the fountain, hands in his pockets and eyes unable to read. 

Zayn takes a few drags, finishes his still-glowing fag, and throws the rest of it in the water, eyes tiny, black slits, like a demon and grin slow, intoxicated. 

“Alright, mate?” he wonders, smile widening with teeth and Liam stares blankly, isn’t as drunk as Zayn is, probably isn’t drunk at all. 

“I heard, from Josh, that you were here”, Liam says, repeats Zayn’s earlier words. 

Niall looks away, stares out the window again, forehead pressing against the cold surface. He misses the days he got happy and horny, while drunk, instead of the sad and aching in his chest with love. His dreams are blank and his grandmother’s voice echoes, still, in the lonely emptiness. 

“Which one of us?” Zayn wonders, drunken amusement in his voice, but slowly cracking. 

Niall closes his eyes, light disappears and he sees darkness, and he feels Zayn’s pulse in his wrist, with Niall’s numb fingers pressing as lightly against it. Liam doesn’t say anything and Niall opens his eyes and glances at him, sees his frown and questions because Liam wasn’t prepared for this, couldn’t predict the sudden change. Niall has learned how to know when change is coming, calculates it in his head (even if he sometimes miscalculate and everything turns into a huge mess), and he knows Zayn, spends every day with him, and he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that this was coming. 

“Lou and Haz have locked themselves into a room. Their shouting can be heard through the door”, Liam informs, pointlessly, like there might be something they can do about it, like they can figure out a solution. 

If only Liam took a step back and looked at this picture, this one right in here, then he’d realize that they’re in the exact same position and everything is slowly turning into a mess, they all fall down. Once, they were all happy, weren’t they? 

“Whatever”, Zayn says, to nothing particular, to nothing at all, and he pulls at Niall’s hand, brings it to his lips and kisses his knuckles. “I’m going to bed, are you coming?”

The _yes,_ rests on the tip of Niall’s tongue, wants to push out through his mouth, make a wise decision, but Niall keeps his mouth shut, shakes his head, and carefully says, “Later.”

Zayn nods, more to himself than to the empty promise, and he leans in to press a burning kiss on Niall’s cheekbone, his hand sliding from Niall’s grip and landing on his hip, pressing fingers into the left side of the blonde’s lower back, momentarily, a squeeze, a _reminder_ and then it’s gone. The older boy stands up, wades through the water to the other side, where Liam is standing, rigid. 

“He’s all yours”, Zayn says, voice unforgiving, but breaking even more and Liam’s eyes grow softer, sadder. 

Stepping out of the water, slacks dripping, Zayn stays by Liam’s side until Liam turns his head and looks at him, water and lights dancing like worms over their faces in the dim light of the room. As Niall watches, Zayn leans in and ghostly brushes his lips against Liam’s, drags them over Liam’s like an Eskimo kiss gone wrong, a tease or a taunt or just out of plain sorrow and he says, voice hoarse and sounding nothing like Zayn when he pulls back, and he breaks every rule of leaving things unspoken, “It would all be a lot easier if we could all just fall in love, yeah? It’s a shame we can’t.”

The youngest of the three stares out the window again and refuses to watch as Zayn leaves and Liam stays, refuses to acknowledge the act of change, pretends that he’s a bird, refuses to feel anything at all as Liam walks over and sits down next to him. Liam puts his camera in his lap, like he has made it magically appear in thin air, and it’s the first time ever Niall feels like destroying the camera and dropping it in the pond. 

-

And then – 

-

And then, _she_ dies. 

His mum calls _(honey, please, I need you to listen now, please, it’s your grandmother, Niall, love, please)_ and then his dad calls, and he can’t say anything, only sobs into the phone and Niall… his head explodes in fire and ashes, glass breaking into tiny pieces, cutting his brain in as many ways as possible and he screams, eyes hurting as if they’re getting pierced by needles, and he clutches to Zayn, to his shirt, rips, screams into his solid chest, muffled and hollow, and he can’t take it, can’t take it, can’t bear the pain. His tears run uncontrollably, staining his cheeks and Zayn’s shirt and soaks through to his skin and to his heart. Niall screams with the beating of the heart, no. 

Zayn holds on to him, a strong hand around the younger boy’s neck, cradles him, and the other on the small of his back, reassuring, and Niall grips everywhere, fingers digging in and clawing at Zayn’s neck, leaves marks on golden skin and blood under the Irish boy’s nails. He doesn’t breathe, Zayn has to remind him _(breathe, Niall, Niall listen, you have to breathe, babe)_ and he kisses his hair as Niall’s body goes limp, legs giving in under him, kisses his forehead, nose nuzzling and breathing for Niall instead, and his own tears fall with Niall’s, out of love and ache. 

There are new hands around his body, from behind, catching as he falls and keeps him steady, mouth by his ear, whispering, Liam, where did he come from, “Listen, Niall. You have to breathe.” 

He doesn’t want to listen, wants to shut his hearing off and make everything go away, let his mind find peace and silence. He doesn’t want _NiallNiallNiall_ to ring until it hurts, anymore. Liam picks him up, one arm around his shoulders and the other under his knees and carries him towards Zayn’s bedroom. Niall keeps his face hidden, listens to Liam’s heartbeat instead, a different beat than Zayn’s, steadier, slower. Real. 

His body shakes as Liam puts him down on the bed and Niall holds on tight, won’t let the boy go, forces him to stay and lie down next to him, needs to keep him close, keep him here with him, fuck. Blindly, he grasps thin air, looking for Zayn and gasping his name and his boyfriend is quickly by his side, fingers sinking into his blonde locks and his body aligning up next to his. Niall crawls into his heat, body shaking and hands searching, and Zayn hugs him close, tucks the blonde’s face into his neck and lets more tears stain his skin. 

Nothing but a mess, he cries for hours and hours, his screams sometimes piercing and he throws his fists into Zayn’s chest and gulps for air, as he feels like a piece of his soul, his heart, is being ripped away, carved from his chest by a rusty knife. This can’t be happening, this can’t be real, this is a dream, another nightmare of her, and he only needs to wake up, Niall wishes. Only, he never wakes up. Instead, he is thrown into deep sleep as Liam hands him some pills and Niall remembers, thinks, that he won’t ever forgive Liam for that. 

-

After days, feeling more like dragged-out years, of staring at the ceiling of Zayn’s bedroom, white, blank, so blank, and darkness in his mind with the solidity of his own name ringing softly, as a lullaby, as a fading memory of _her_ – his mum calls him, _(the funeral’s in two days, love, we should all be there, your dad needs you)_ , and Niall doesn’t respond to any of her words. 

It rains during the funeral, the grey sky finally opens up and evokes its rage upon everyone. Niall can relate, presses fingers deep into his mother’s arm, his face white as the veil of a ghost. She hugs him tight, soft murmurs and promises in his ear of, “We’ll get through this”, and Niall can’t find it in him to believe her. He hugs his dad and feels his tears against his shoulder, can’t fully handle the sight of his dad crying and Zayn kisses his temple afterwards, murmurs things Niall can’t hear. 

He’s empty and he wishes to be able to close his eyes and wake up somewhere else, in a world of snowy Christmases in a creaky house and his grandmother smiling as he takes pictures of her and the entire family, like a pretend paparazzo, while his parents are busy arguing in the kitchen. It might not have been perfect, but at least she was alive back then, she was _there._

Liam tells him, eyes bigger than Niall has ever seen them, using his Wikipedia-clever voice that, “You’re in the stage of depression, Niall. It’ll be over soon and it’ll be better.” 

Niall turns his back on Liam then, wondering if that’s his poor attempt at trying to _give answers_ to questions Niall hasn’t asked and thinking he and Liam have never been a worse match made. Things won’t just _get better,_ can’t Liam feel the change and its sour effect? 

Zayn doesn’t say much – he comes with food, forces Niall to eat, hands him the phone when Niall’s mum is trying so hard to reach him, holds him close during the cold nights which are not even that cold in reality and Niall hears, hears the times Zayn yells on the phone at someone from work _(he just lost his grandmother you twat, I don’t give a fuck if you need me to cover extra classes, find a substitute, she meant everything to him)_ even if he has locked himself away in the bathroom. Zayn tries to stay by his side as often as possible, hands in blonde locks and lips pressed to his temple and holding on. (The times when he isn’t there, Liam is.) 

During all of this, Niall _knows_ deep within his mind that he doesn’t deserve Zayn and all his love, and that Zayn doesn’t deserve Niall and all his emptiness. 

So, he leaves.

He books a flight and disappears back to the place where his memories are happy, not sad, and where his grandmother will always live. It’s not a conscious decision as much as it is a pure instinct driven by desperation (because London isn’t home, England isn’t home, not as much as Ireland is and he wants home, needs it badly and he thinks everyone needs to take a break from him until he sorts his shit out, it’s for the better). 

After turning his phone off and hiding it in some of his grandmother’s old drawers, now empty _(I went to pick up her stuff, son, thought I might as well…)_ but quickly filled with Niall’s clothes, he sits down in the garden outside, not even feeling the cold breezes sweeping through. He’s been holding his breath since he heard the news and it’s not until now, here, sitting under the big tree of falling apples that he allows himself to breathe. And he feels rotten, like the bad apples resting on the ground, for every breath he takes. 

-

Winter comes quicker than ever before and Niall realizes it’s been a year since his grandmother got her diagnosis of Alzheimer and got moved to a nursery home, since his dreams started and took control of his head, since he climbed on a plane with his best friends and found himself in Zayn and Liam’s bed, messed up their friendship and their lives. By now, his dreams of emptiness and darkness have merged into a grey area, grey like the sky above his grandmother’s house. Sometimes, Niall lies in his bed (the one that’s too small for him now, the one he stayed in every time he visited his grandmother) and stares at the ceiling, listens to the creaking and the angry wind, and imagines he can see the grey sky above, bright like in daylight, but still filled with stars. 

The night when he wakes up from dreams for the first time, his vision behind his eyes a milky grey blur, he makes one phone call from a phone booth in the small village, kilometres away, walking with bare feet the whole way, to his dad. 

He says, “Grandma loved you, dad, so much”, and then he sobs into the phone, mixing with his father’s own crying, until he sinks down to the ground and stays there, in the booth, for the rest of the night in the cold, flickering fluorescents above him. 

When he wakes up, he makes a second phone call and his eyes sting as he dials the number and he hopes, he does, selfishly, that the other end won’t pick up. As it is, though, his sins deserve punishment and the other end picks up after one signal. 

“Hello?”

Niall closes his eyes shut, tightly, keeps the morning light of the red sun out, and focuses on his own breathing. He can’t forget to breathe. Birds start singing outside the phone booth, high up in their branches, and Niall leans his head against the dirty glass window of the booth, lets the cool surface keep him sane. This isn’t the call he planned to make. 

“…Niall?”

If it were possible to throw up your feelings, then Niall would be anorexic by now because somehow he knows even though he shouldn’t. He takes a shivering breath, tries to find strength to talk and to force his emotions to calm. Inside, he’s a volcano and a tornado, both battling for dominance of his soul. 

“I’m sorry, Li”, he chokes out and his tears fall, burning his tender skin. “Please, I – “ 

His palm lands flat on the dirty glass, nails digging into the surface and he forces air through his nose while his body jerks with his quiet sobs. He’s exhausted, so fucking exhausted. 

“Where are you, Niall?” Liam wonders, voice soft but still with a force behind, still angry because Liam expects more of Niall, expects him not to fuck up, thinks of him as a fantasy, as perfection. 

Niall wishes he can go to sleep and dream of nothing, thinks he deserves to be alone (because Niall isn’t stupid, after a year of this he _knows_ what his dreams mean). He shakes his head even though Liam can’t see him, but he doesn’t care, doesn’t want to answer, can’t explain that there’s a home existing in the world which Zayn isn’t a part of. 

“Tell him that – tell him that I’m sorry, tell him that I love him”, Niall says instead, as if he doesn’t hear Liam’s question, or as if he ignores it like he ignores all of Liam’s other questions. 

Liam Payne is a black bird, always chasing him, always wanting more, needing more, asking for more. Zayn Malik is a white sheet of paper, unreadable, consuming, perfectly all-knowing of all secrets, always there. Niall Horan is a grey sky, a kid with baggage, a fucked up childhood of parents who’d rather scream than love each other, a grandmother who cherished him and gave him everything, lost in a paradise that is her garden. 

“And I – “, Niall stutters, swallows dryly and wipes his tears with the back of his free hand. “I love you too." 

And so, it’s out and now it can’t ever be unspoken. When and how did they end up here? Right, dreams. 

He hears a frustrated sigh escape Liam on the other end, a silent groan and he wonders if Liam is crying too, crying because this is all so fucked up and they can’t find a way out of it, crying because this is all Niall’s fault, he isn’t perfect, and they both know it. 

“Come home, Ni. Fuck, you – You don’t know… Just come home.” 

In sorrow of the change in his life, Niall’s lips twitch up through his tears and he wishes he could give Liam answers, tell him about his grandmother, tell him about life and dreams and make him understand. 

“Take care of him”, he says and hangs up before he regrets it. He stares at the phone for a while, then exits the booth and pulls his hoodie up over his head to keep curious eyes from seeing him and his mess, and walks back home, bare feet scraping the cold pavement. 

-

He stays gone for long and December is soon within reach. Niall spends his days sitting by the open fire and uploading photos on his laptop, looking through them and editing them, then baking the same honey bread as he and his grandmother used to bake during the holidays and drinking milk and sugar with tea, sweet enough to hurt his teeth. The house lacks any of his photos, the ones his grandmother would always keep and nail to the wall and it almost makes the house completely foreign to him. 

He snaps a few pictures of the outside, as stormy as ever, and he goes through thousands of pictures on his computer, photos he hasn’t had a look at properly before. He looks at pictures from when he was younger, pictures when both his grandmother and grandfather were alive and happy, pictures of himself and his siblings playing football in his grandmother’s garden, some of his old dog and his parents when also they were happy, smiling. They’re all nothing but memories, memories he wishes he could make real and _here again._

The evening when the first snow falls, there’s a knock on the door. The nights when Niall doesn’t bother to cook, he orders a pizza and he always pays the kid delivering it a bit extra as a silent plea of _don’t tell anyone_ (as if any of the people in the village would care about the lonely teenager staying in the empty house, but still, maybe). So far, no one has come knocking and wondering who he is and what he’s doing there. No one has come looking for him. 

That’s why, when he opens the door, he doesn’t expect to find a boy with golden eyes in the storm of snow. Niall blinks slowly, wants to laugh or maybe cry, because yet again his mind is playing tricks on him and he must be lost in another dream. He blinks again, harder, and then again, faster, but the boy in front of him won’t disappear. 

“So”, Liam says, simply but still with an edge, anger, and a shrug as a breeze plays with his hair. “Here you are.” 

Right, of course. Liam’s the black bird, the one who persistently chases him, finds him, and Niall has no idea what to say, how to feel. Why is it that he’s always at a loss for words whenever Liam’s around? Why can’t he _ever_ just open his mouth and speak, _answer?_

He swallows thickly, eyes dropping to the ground, and he stares at the pile of snow gathering by the threshold, at times catching in the wind and landing on his bare feet just inside and melting immediately. It’s mesmerising, that’s what it is, and it keeps him from looking at Liam. 

“Are you going to let me in? Or do you want me to sleep out here?” Liam asks, words still rough, piercing Niall’s fragile skin. 

Niall slowly raises his head, dares to look up. In the darkness and the eerie light of the moon mixed with the light from inside, he sees snowflakes dance a ballet scenario, Swan Lake maybe, around Liam’s head and land in his hair, staining it white until they melt. The flakes capture his attention and keep him from meeting Liam’s eyes and watch the damage he has done. 

He opens his mouth, but hesitates and his gaze takes in the view behind Liam and the older boy says, he says, “There’s no one else out there, Niall.” 

His cheeks burn, because that’s not what Niall was thinking and he looks at Liam again, finds his eyes, and thinks of telling him to just go and to not come back, but then… Niall is tired, he’s fucking exhausted. Most of all, he’s tired of running, running away from what’s chasing him. Liam. 

So, he steps aside and lets the other boy in. He closes the door and leans against it, watches as Liam drops a heavy bag on the floor and then stares at him, a wrinkle between his eyes and fragments of questions resting in the brown seas. 

“Don’t”, Niall says and shakes his head. “Just, don’t.” 

-

They share a pizza, stare silently at the open fire and lazily switch through the channels on the telly. Liam doesn’t ask any questions and Niall doesn’t offer any answers. In a way, Niall thinks it might be liberating if he _did_ say something, explained anything, but then again he can’t make himself, can’t find it in himself. Somehow, he can’t help but think he doesn’t have to explain anything at all. 

Jake Gyllenhaal is talking with a human size bunny on the screen, Niall tilts his head and tries to pay attention. Liam glances at him. 

It’s not until later, when Niall’s washing their plates in the kitchen that Liam says something. He softly pads his way up behind Niall, leans his back against the kitchen counter next to him and steadies himself with the heels of his hands. Silently, with his head practically buried in his pulled up shoulders, he watches as Niall opens the tap and lets water pour over the surface of the plates. 

He glances down at his crossed legs, his feet – Niall listens to the sound of Liam’s breathing and _waits_ – and then finally he says something, murmurs, “Can I try something?” 

Niall looks at him wearily and bites the inside of his cheek, tries to collect his thoughts, but then suddenly no thoughts exist and instead he’s tired, exhausted like always. He nods, once, in the smallest of movements and Liam licks his lips and carefully leans forward, pressing his lips to his, catching his upper lip as fingers graze his jaw. Niall sighs through his nose, or maybe exhales a tense breath, and Liam pulls away, forehead brushing the blonde’s. 

“I just wanted to do that, knowing that you love me”, he says, a faint smile playing over his lips and it’s nice, it is, but then again it isn’t because Niall can feel his chest being ripped open and his eyes tear up. 

The plate clatters as he drops it in the sink and he quickly wipes at his eye before a tear has managed to properly fall, and he turns and tries to make an escape but then Liam makes a grumbled _no_ deep down in his throat and hurries after him, catches him by the arm. 

“No”, Liam repeats and corners Niall against the wall. “I can’t do this anymore. It’s been a year, Ni – longer than that – and I can’t do this.” 

He pushes his forehead against Niall’s, as if he’s trying to transfer his thoughts in some way and closes his eyes shut tightly. 

“I love you, okay. I love you, you know that, and you love me too”, he says and holds onto Niall’s hands, like he knows Niall will try to make a run for it any time. “I just need to hear you say it. Please, Niall, just tell me.” 

Liam opens his eyes and Niall is forced to stare into his streams of golden brown, to drown in them. Somewhere, back where Zayn is, is also a girl named Danielle with a bright future ahead of her, a future bride which fits Liam perfectly. 

Still, he quickly glances down and then back up again, takes a heavy breath and mumbles, “I love you.” 

The older boy leans back, a soft tension between his brows and dry, empty questions covering his features. 

“No”, he says. “That’s not – That’s not what I meant.” 

Of course it’s not, because Niall can never live up to Liam’s expectations, he can never be as good as Liam wants him to. (Danielle’s the good one, kind and carefree, the one Liam should want). He pulls his hands out of Liam’s grip and squirms his way over to the staircase, needing to hide, disappear. 

“Niall”, Liam calls after him, when the blonde boy has stepped onto the first stair. “I just want you to tell me that you _know_ he isn’t real.” 

Niall stares at him blankly, a frown slowly forming on his features and Liam _stares, wonders_ and finally groans impatiently. 

“Ni, please tell me you know Zayn isn’t real. Just… _tell_ me.” 

As if someone has hit him in the head, it starts to ring inside Niall’s head and he disappears up the stairs, hides in hope to never be found. 

-

As a child, Niall’s grandmother used to say he had the most impressive imagination, that everything he imagined could be made real, true. On every blank page existing in this world, Niall had the power to make something of it, put a picture there. He wonders if she knew, if she understood him better than anyone, _everyone,_ else did. He wonders if she was like him, if she sometimes disappeared in her own worlds within her mind while she was out in her garden and spent whole days out there. 

Niall locks himself into his room, listens faintly to the sound of Liam knocking on the door and ignores him completely when he asks, “Are you okay? Can you let me in, please? We need to talk about this, Ni.” 

He calls his mum and tells her that he loves her and always will. When she asks him why he’s telling her that, he says, “Maybe I should’ve seen my old therapist again”, and hangs up. 

He’d like to believe that Liam Payne is a filthy liar with a fucked up mind, he’d like to not listen to the words he has to say. Niall finds his phone in one of his drawers, turns it on and scrolls through it in search of Zayn’s number but with, strangely, no luck in finding it. Then he realizes he remembers the number clearly in his head, he dials it and holds his breath while the signals go through. 

“Ni?” he hears on the other end, but it’s not Zayn, hasn’t ever been Zayn, Niall realizes, and he hears his name being echoed outside the door of his bedroom as well, repeating in Liam’s voice, “Ni?” 

Niall clutches the phone tightly in his hand, ears so very sharp as if Liam’s voice somehow can magically change into Zayn’s if only he concentrates hard enough. 

“You should look through your pictures”, Liam says with a sigh and it echoes again as his voice can be heard through the door as well. 

The Irish boy doesn’t hang up the phone, but keeps it by his ear as safety and finds his laptop and turns it on. He takes a shaky breath, grateful that Liam is smart enough to keep quiet, and then slowly starts going through picture after picture. 

He starts with the oldest and goes through to the newest, and he can feel his heart break into nothing as none of the pictures he looks through have Zayn in them. He reaches the pictures of their vacation and he wishes, thinks _maybe._ There’s Harry and Lou laughing, there’s Liam by a red sunset, there’s Lou with his sunglasses and a sharp grin, there’s Liam sleeping, there’s Harry jumping into the pool. He finds the pictures from _that night_ after his grandmother had called, when they had gotten wasted and Niall and Zayn had kissed for the first time. Niall remembers the blurry pictures he snapped, all of them only with Liam making funny faces. He remembers how he gave Liam the camera and how he took picture after picture while he and Zayn danced. 

His heart hammers in his throat as if it’s trying to escape through his mouth and a burning hot tear slides down his cheek as he watches picture after picture of no one else but himself, grinning, dancing, drinking. Then there’s a picture of him and Liam, taken from an odd angle, and with their lips pressed together. 

“I…”, Liam breathes on the other end. “I figured it all out, eventually, Ni…” 

Niall thinks _fuck,_ hangs up the phone and closes his laptop, pushes both away like afraid they’re poison. 

He buries his fingers in his hair and leans to the side, his head finding his pillow and hiding his face of tears. He wishes he knew _how_ and understood _why._ There’s a soft knock on his door again, filled by murmured _questions_ and Niall closes his eyes and imagines he’s far, far, far away. Running. 

-

He disappears inside a darkness and he doesn’t know for how long he stays gone, what day it is or what time it is when he wakes back up again. He feels empty, _finished._ Maybe this is it, the finish line, maybe. 

Niall glances out his window and sees a stupid, grey sky. There’s no wind outside, no creaking in the house and no soft voice calling his name from the other side of the door. He wonders if maybe Liam gave up and left, if Niall’s mess is too fucking much for him to handle. Without actually thinking, he gets up from the bed and leaves his room, walks with slow and careful steps down the hall outside. Somewhere deep within his mind is old dreams, shouting in his head and pictures of people he used to know, _knew maybe,_ from a time long, long ago. He vaguely remembers a time when his old therapist told him, _our dreams define us, yours control you._

He hears water running, sees a crack in the door to the bathroom and his feet lead the way without him thinking. The door slides open, quietly, and there he is under a stream of hot water. Not the white page, always there and so very _easy,_ still non-existent. No, there’s the black birds which have been trying to catch him for so long, greedy and demanding. 

Niall opens the shower door, not caring that he’s still fully dressed, and steps inside the steaming heat just as Liam turns around. The older boy just stares at him, no questions just this once, and waits for what Niall might do next. Letting out a tiny breath he didn’t know he was keeping in, he reaches up, slides palms over Liam’s shoulders and then wraps his arms around Liam’s neck and pulls him in close. Liam’s hands find Niall’s hips, squeezing, fingers accidentally grazing a tattoo which doesn’t mean anything, and he buries his face in the blonde’s neck, tiny puffs of breath tickling Niall’s sensitive skin there. Niall’s clothes get soaked as he steps closer to Liam, the stream pouring over his head. 

He thinks, _this is where Liam catches him, this is the ultimate finish line_ and he pushes the older boy against the wall of the shower, lifts his head and presses their lips together. _This is where life changes._

His tongue plays with Liam’s lips, slowly, slowly sinking in until Liam surges forward and captures his lips again. The older boy kisses him deeply, hands resting on his cheeks. Niall drops his own hands and reaches down to the hem of his shirt, pulls at it and breaks away from their kiss quickly to pull the wet shirt off, dropping it to the ground. With fumbling fingers and a weak balance, he manages to get his jeans off too along with his boxers and Liam’s breath hitches at the sight of him naked. 

“I’ve never…”, he starts and his cheeks burn red like a beautiful sunset. 

“I know. It’s okay”, Niall promises, steps back into the stream of water, grabs a bottle of soap and squirts some out in his hand. 

He smears it on his fingers, then reaches down behind him (his own fingers passing branded ink on hip) and slowly sinks them into his crack, circling his hole there and carefully pushing in. He steps closer to Liam again, kisses him and then grips his hand, motions for him to join the one working him loose. Liam obeys and Niall rests his forehead against Liam’s collarbone, bites down into the muscle of his chest at the feeling of his hesitant yet searching fingers finding home and pressing with Niall’s. _Fuckfuckfuck._

Eventually, Liam says, “Can I”, and is already lifting Niall before he has had time to answer, the blonde wrapping his legs around the brunette’s waist and steadying himself against the wall behind. 

Liam pushes and Niall meets him somewhere halfway, and it feels like getting a healthy dose of reality when Liam enters him. Niall holds his breath, leans his head back against the wall, holds on to Liam’s shoulder and _feels._ He pushes and pulls, takes and gives, placing sloppy kisses against Niall’s exposed neck. Niall moans and it feels like he’s sinking into the sea. 

-

Dreams. Every perfect dream has to end, right. Niall thinks he has known _people_ once, has seen them elsewhere than in his hallucinations. His grandmother was real, yet she existed mostly in his head. Zayn might be a dream, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be found somewhere, a lost soul, wandering and waiting. 

Liam says, he says, “You’re okay, right?” and Niall nods against his shoulder, tries to place what’s real and what isn’t. 

He doesn’t ask even though he should, it would be easier, but Niall can’t find himself to. He has noticed that Liam’s features of _questions_ are – at least for the moment – gone and he wonders who he has spoken to, when and how he came to understand. Niall still doesn’t ask. 

“Maybe you should see someone when we get back”, Liam suggests and yes, it might be wise. 

Niall pulls the covers closer around them, listens to the faint creaking in the house and holds Liam just as much as he holds him. Liam is black, existing. Niall is grey. Zayn is white, a lie. 

“You still love Danielle”, Niall says, after such a long silence they might’ve just have fallen asleep. 

“Yeah”, Liam breathes. “But I love you more.” 

And Niall can’t help but wonder if all this time it has been a NiallLiamDani sandwich, if he was just too blind and lost to see it. He smiles at the thought, can’t help himself. 

“I will always love you more”, Liam says and finds Niall’s lips, brushing his own against them. 

_Sure,_ Niall thinks, _maybe he will._ He buries his face in Liam’s chest, clings a bit desperately to his reality and selfishly wishes he wouldn’t have to go back, that he wouldn’t have to face everything with a clear mind. A grey fog is safe, that’s what it is. 

Liam lifts his head and kisses him firmly, lingering, and rests their foreheads together. 

He says, “Everything will be alright”, and Niall believes him, trusts him with his whole heart. 

He’s still tired, _exhausted,_ and there’s still a voice ringing in his head, calling his name, making it ache with restlessness in his bones. But Liam assures him with such sincerity, almost a bit teary eyed like he can’t believe he’d fall for such a nuthead like Niall, and Niall can’t do anything but trust and wait for _change._ Wait for something better. 

Somewhere, though, in an old drawer in this near-empty house lies a ringing phone with a bunch of messages, one of them from a boy with raven hair and dark, dark eyes and glasses resting on his nose. That boy says, “Niall, where the fuck are you? I’m worried”, on the voicemail, then texts _Your mum is worried too, you should at least tell her where you are_ and then, _Ni, I know you miss her, please just call me. I love you._

Sometimes, in other dreams and other realities, black is the night, what you can’t see and what isn’t real and white is the day, what’s visible and always clear. Grey is the fog in between. Sometimes, maybe, imagination and reality can work as one. Sometimes, maybe, it can’t. Sometimes, maybe, you miscalculate things. 

_fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry that it's taken me ages to update! I'm only weeks from finishing my last school year (before heading off to uni this autumn) and I've had loads and loads to do. All you youngsters out there, don't be so quick to grow up, it's no fun. 
> 
> Anyway, I started this fic with the intention to make my mind up whether I ship Ziall or Niam more. This is the outcome. Can you tell which couple I chose? *smirky face of evil*
> 
> Thanks for all the lovely comments and kudos, I hope you've enjoyed the ride. xx
> 
> Ps. Html code is my enemy and I hate it. Ds.


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